Steam in South Africa - Part 1 - Bloemfontein to Kimberley & Marseilles with 25NC & 15F locomotives

I learned about this trip from a friend who was already booked on the tour and when I checked the itinerary out for myself, it looked too good to miss. The tour was run by FarRail Tours a company with a reputation for doing something a bit different. The aim was to create authentic looking trains from the 60's and 70's when steam was still king with locomotives and rolling stock from that era. The intention was to travel to pre arranged photographic locations by bus or sometimes aboard the trains to be featured in our photographs
When I booked the tour, it was made clear that things can go wrong with changes to the itinerary likely, as it turned out, events outside the control of our tour organiser did go wrong, with overhead electrified railways suffering from theft of the contact wire, heavy rainfall elsewhere in the country causing rolling stock to be trapped the wrong side of damaged bridges, theft of the doors from the passenger carriages that were intended to create mixed trains and allow passengers to travel to some locations by train. The coal purchased for the trip was in the wrong place, no water carrying waggons or usable authentic passenger carriages left our tour organisers facing a set of challenges that might have defeated lesser men and to their credit they were able to put together an itinerary that contained much of what was promised.
Most of the shots featured in this video were taken along the line between Kimberly and Bloemfontein with a few sunset scenes towards the end taken along the route towards Marseilles. Please sit back and enjoy what might well be the last opportunity to enjoy the glorious sights and sounds of big South African steam locomotives at work hauling the authentic freight trains they were designed for.

Maps – 00:35 – Google Earth/Maps and https://www.openrailwaymap.org/

Tour arranged by FarRail - https://www.farrail.com/

Locomotives featured - Class 25NC 4-8-4 No.3437 "Sianni" & Class 15F 4-8-2 No.2976.

Track Gauge - 1,067 mm (3 ft 6 in) Cape gauge track.

Tour date - 17th July to 1st August 2024