South African Heritage Locomotives for Sale, 2016

FEDRAIL SA, (www.fedrailsa.com link broken by December 2021) the new coordinating body for South African steam preservation has issued the following press release on 8th January 2016..

We have been advised by Transnet that a large number of steam locomotives will come up for sale in February 2016. These locomotives were previously classified as Heritage and to be retained. They still have a chance to survive if they are purchased by the Preservation sector. If no bids are made from people to preserve them then they will be sold to the scrap industry.

As many are valuable as a source of parts these would have to be sourced from the scrap industry and from our experience the scrap industry cannot be bothered with people taking items off scrap locomotives. Alternatively they demand unrealistic prices for the spares.

The best possible solution is for people to purchase them. That of course does create yet another problem in terms of the logistics involved in moving them somewhere safe. There are various locations in South Africa, such as Reefsteamers, the Sandstone Heritage Trust and possibly others where free accommodation could be made available in the interests of Preservation. We will be canvassing the Preservation sector to see how many such storage sites might potentially be available.

These locomotives will only be sold for the scrap price which at the moment is fairly low. Bearing in mind the exchange rate to the South African Rand (R24:£1 or R16:$1 etc.) the amount of money required to buy them will actually be minimal for foreigners in particular. There is no reason why foreigners cannot bid for these locomotives and FEDRAIL SA will in any event assist with the process. It should be borne in mind however that the transportation cost of getting these locomotives to a safe location could be more than the cost of the locomotive. FEDRAIL SA will be in a position to provide estimates of cost as long as we know well in advance that someone is interested in a specific locomotive. We will seek out the best solution to its longer term storage.

For a full list (in XLSX format), please click here.

FEDRAIL SA will issue regular bulletins regarding any developments that are taking place.

In the interim we would ask interested parties to study the attached list to see whether they can make a contribution. One idea if for people to form consortiums to acquire these locomotives and certainly foreign railway enthusiast groups could add one of these locomotives to their collection as part of a longer term strategy to make a contribution to Steam Railway Preservation. After the loss of the SANRASM collection it is unthinkable that these locomotives should be lost.

Let’s not see this happen again!

We invite interested parties from around the world to join FEDRAIL SA to strengthen ties with Southern African Railway Heritage. To become a member, contact membership@fedrailsa.com (link broken by December 2021). For further information contact Dave Richardson on dave@fedrailsa.com (link broken by December 2021)