Talk:South African Class 16B 4-6-2

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Class 16B 805

Text of message by Les Pivnic, former deputy curator of the S A Railway Museum, at
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/sar-L/message/35393
Re: [sar-L] Re: Class 16B 4-6-2

Indeed not Ashley!
It was no urban legend - Ben Schoeman fired on 805 when she was stationed at Braamfontein Loco on the passenger link in the 1930s.
That was the very reason for selecting that particular loco to mount at Johannesburg Station.
When a decision was taken to mount 805 at JHB, she was at that time, a 16CR -16B locos reboilered with std Watson boiler adopted the classification 16CR.
We thought that it would be nice if 805 could be returned to her original appearance as a 16B. So my colleague Charlie McLean spoke to the Loco Foreman and Leading Hand Boilermaker at Krugersdorp Loco (Millsite) and they said that they would be able to fabricate a dummy boiler that would look like the original with the Belpaire firebox. The problem was the cab. At that point, I remembered seeing an original large Hendrie cab dumped in the old Pretoria Mechanical Workshops so I took a train to Pretoria and walked over the footbridge that straddled the old complex. I got lucky!! There in the dust, near the old steam loco Erecting Shop was the cab that I had remembered from many years ago!! This was brilliant - I got back to my office and phoned the Loco Foreman at Krugersdorp and told him that I had found the exact cab that we needed to complete the restoration of 805. He duly sent a truck with an on-board crane to uplift the cab in Pretoria. It was duly brought through, cleaned up and fitted to the dummy boiler on 805 - mission accomplished!
We all felt very proud of what we had achieved.
Dr Loubser (GM at that time) was thrilled to hear that the Museum had managed to restore 805 to her original appearance in honour of our Minister.
The rest is history.
When I saw 805 in the OTM in George a couple of years ago, I thought to myself - there's quite a story behind you old girl!
Regards
Les Pivnic

Inserted here for record purposes by André Kritzinger 15:16, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

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