Hello,

I regularlly check out the efforts of the Sandstone Heritage Trust on the web:

http://www.sandstone-estates.com/index_sht.htm

They mention that they also have shop space in Bloemfontein. Here is an overhead photo of the sight.

http://wikimapia.org/#lat=-29.112665&lon=26.237567&z=18&l=0&m=a&v=2

Note the rows of steam locomotives. The aerial photo states 2007 but Gert Jubileus at Sandstone had a piece on June 11th that the locomotives there are meeting the torch as we speak. So, how many are left at present is unknown.

http://www.sandstone-estates.com/herita ... _final.htm

It amazing they have lasted this long, but very sad as well. This is the way it must have looked in American scrap yards in the 1950's.

Regards,

Randy Musselman

Randy,
Thanks for the links. The "Final Demise" is, indeed, terribly sad. Obviously, the writer knew and loved steam like many of us. It reminds me of Ron Ziel's sad tribute to CB&Q 2-10-4 #6316 which appeared in his "Twilight of Steam Locomotives".
Don C.

I can tell you for sure that many of the images on google Earth are very out of date, the shot of my town shows one of the municipal buildings as it looked more than two years ago and another building constructed about the same time is also not shown.