Garratts in Zimbabwe.

Anyone who really wants a last chance to see these locos in action should take a look at the tour being run by Far Rail. http://www.farrail.com/

Not a very clear satellite show but this is Bulawayo shed and most of thoses locos are Garratts...
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&s...8117,28.562173&spn=0.002483,0.005472&t=h&z=18

 

Just waiting now to see if there are going to be enough bookings for the trip to acually take place, and it will be mainly video...
Far Rail were suggested to me by David Rogers of SLST.

 

Thanks Ben, already transferred to Geoff Cooke's trip... Getting stocked up with tapes, just a question on how many? Can you have too much footage of Garratts when they look like these.

 

Thanks Ray, When I spoke to him a couple of days ago there were 47 on the tour although a few are not doing the rail part, and he has a fairly full programme for them as well. He also said the NRZ have allocated one Class 14A, one Class 15A and one class 16A for our tour, and that steam trains have run to Plumtree and to Heany Junction (past Cement) in the past few weeks.

 

Just got back this morning and it was a fabulous trip, all credit must go to Geoff Cooke of Geoffs Trains, as we got exactly what was promised, 14, 15 and 16A Garratts. From Bulawayo we had runs on the Plumtree line, a short run to Cement and then a full day to Dete. Then a couple of days running from Thompson Junction before finally a couple of runs out of Victoria Falls. The train crews were the most friendly guys you could meet and nothing was too much trouble. Every run had either one or two of us on the footplate, but it did get a little crowded as with two trainee firemen as well there were sometimes 7 on.
Video will be up in a day or two.

 

Ray, the three that we had were 395, 525 and 611, and yes the VF Zambian operation was working as it was the one we used for the VF to Livingstone run, where 204 was also in steam for us.
We did not have continuous steam from Bulawayo to VF due to operational reasons. We got as far as, I think it was, Zanguja sidings and then bus from there to VF. Geoff was saying that condition of locos permitting he was going to run again next year.
I heard nothing about World cup specials.

 

This is the first part of my record of the tour. Sunday was a short run from Bulawayo to Cement and return, the weather remained dull for most of the day.

[youtube]Zdcigtv8gSQ&hd=1[/youtube]

Part two

[youtube]A_-Wv3slZJU&hd=1[/youtube]

 

Things certainly seemed better than 4 years ago, and the crew members on our train had a much more positive attitude mainly it appeared down to the stable currency now they have taken the USD to be official.
I was offered a set of Zim dollar notes from a 10 billion dollar one right up to the Trillion dollar note, for $10, I refused and got them for $1.
There were plenty of tourists at VF and the majority were Japanese, and even some Americans, who I believe a few years back would not venture near the country.

 

Part Three.

[youtube]UKtOFBhPfbQ&hd=1[/youtube]

 

Try Part Four then.

[youtube]PyPraVJDSk4&hd=1[/youtube]

 

Thanks John, there were some great locations. The loco continued to run for two more days in that condition before making it's way back to Bulawayo, I suppose to be repaired with parts cannibalised from their stock of scrap locos.

 

Part Six.

[youtube]s7BQf7RFyAQ&hd=1[/youtube]

 

One of the guys on this tour has just sent me a link to the site with his selection of stills and has said that I can pass on the link to anyone interested.
http://issuu.com/paulperton/docs/gtvf