When things go wrong

Many years ago when I was out videoing we used to bump into a guy we called Meccano Man as he had a hand built clamp set up with tripod mount on it that looked like Meccano bits and pieces to clamp onto bridges etc.. he had extendable loppers and I remember one time on Cockett he cleared his shot then others borrowed them to clear their shot!

 

Brings back memories of the first South African Steam Festival on the Kimberley to De Aar double track main line in 1989. That festival was my idea that I had suggested at a meeting with the Kimberley Tourist Office in 1988 when I was supporting an English driver on the line who was trying to get steam a longer term future there. But when the idea looked like becoming a success, that it was my suggestion was of course forgotten - except that any South African journalists/film crews who came to do a news item were directed to me, which was no real problem. So, on one of the days of the week long event, I had two townie journalists from Durban who had never seen the Karoo semi desert the De Aar line ran through and were keen to show their townie readers back in Durban that their country actually had semi deserts with such as very large cactuses growing in them. Enter one of the line's frequent freight trains due to be heading north with an unusual combination of locos on the front - part of the festival arrangements. I'd agreed with the journalisst to take them along the SA Railways service road and lead them up a kopje north of Belmont station, where they'd have a good view of a steam hauled train making lots of smoke heading through the semi desert past at least one very large cactus I knew was on the lineside. So, to ensure a good display, we stopped at Belmont station and I asked the signalman to stop this particular northbound bound freight and ask the drivers and firemen to make a lot of smoke from soon after they restarted and passed the kopje we would be on.

So the stage was set and I got the journalists to a perfect view of the semi-desert, of the very large cactus and of the northbound frieght as it was being halted by signals at Belmont.

BUT, I had forgotten about Dennis, an ex pat English guy and superb railway photographer. Not nicknamed Mechano Man as above, but with his very, very large steel panga machette always at the ready in his car boot to remove any non-required vegetation spoiling his view, we should have got a nick name for him.

And yes, he had been chasing the train and as I saw his car coming along the service road, I was hoping he would pass us by. But no, out he got just out of the view of the magnificent desert complete with massive cactus I had got the townie journalists to. But then Dennis walked back down the service road and into view with his enormous panga at the ready, and yes, you guessed it! Goodbye cactus . . . . . . .

The result was two very sad SA townie journalists. They got their photo of the very claggy steam hauled feight train restart, but in a semi desert without a decent sized cactus.

I did get sent a copy of the newspaper their report and photos were in, but there was clearly something very important missing from the Belmont photo!

Bryan

PS Do not try this at home or at Forge Farm Crossing!