The Spirit of Steam – Smith, Bourne

Description

As a sanctuary for one of man’s own endangered creations — the steam locomotive—South Africa’s position is unique. Not only is she the last of the world’s industrialized nations to operate steam for both goods and passenger traffic on a rail network set against superb scenery, but the country’s mines and industry run a private stable of engines found, elsewhere, only in the world’s few railway museums.

In magnificent colour photographs and an entertaining but instructive text, The Spirit of Steam captures, for the present and future enthusiast, the essence of the staggering range of locomotive types and classes which still operate on the southern tip of Africa. A fascinating blend of picture and word takes the reader across the sun-scorched veld, through cuttings surrounded by snow-capped mountains, and along narrow-gauge lines which wind their way among forests and sub-tropical growth. And, as few other railway books have done, The Spirit of Steam runs back the curtain on the men who ride the footplate, feeding the fires and taming the steel leviathans. For the spirit which the book captures is not only the spectral smoke and steam, it is the acrid sulphur smell of the firebox and the rough grittiness of fine cinders.

Between these pages, the armchair traveller can share, at last, the heat of the engine cab, the throb of a locomotive ‘giving all its got’, and the thrill of titanic wheels as they thrum their history-making tattoo across an ever-changing landscape.