Photographing steam in the Karoo

Halcyon days indeed.

 

This is most certainly a Don't Do This At Home posting!

A very much draft double page spread, screen grabbed at very low resolution from one of two 1989 chapters of my South African Steam Loco memoirs book. July.

Just about on the border between the Northern Karoo and the Oranje Free State. With virtually all the circa 100 mile drive back to Witput in the mainly pitch black Karoo where the car headlights always gave the impression I was driving through a forest with the trees forming a sort of tunnel.

Bryan

Needs to be at full size to be readable.

 

I left my overnight stop hotel at Graaff Reinet at 04.15 on a very cold winter's morning and drove through snow showers as I went over the Lootsberg Pass. Hoping the weather front wasn't going to spoil the Karoo sunrise where I planned to arrive at the end of my fast 200 plus mile drive to find a southbound 25NC 4-8-4 hauled freight at sunrise. I found 25NC 3501 heading south at Potfontein on train 2408, the 01.50 from Beaconsfield with little more than seconds to spare as the cloud closed in on the sun that was just starting to climb above the horizon. A frame grab from a digitised video Hi-8 tape shot on a Sony consumer camera. I also got a sun burst panning as the loco passed me close on the same against the sun sequence. Then it was cloud cover for the rest of the day. But I didn't care.

Bryan

 

Epic shot Bryan.