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Published in "Madibeng Pulse"

Thieves Are Relentlessly Stealing Tracks Of The Pretoria-Magaliesburg Choo-tjoe Train

Thursday 5 August 2010

By Dolf Dreyer

Slowly but surely the remnants of the old railway line between Pretoria and Magaliesburg which has a deep imprint in the history of the area, is being carted away section by section. Undaunted by the (distant) possibility of being accosted, the thieves dismantle the heavy railway tracks and then load them onto a truck at the dead of night. Thus, the dream many people have of reviving the old steam train as a quaint and historic tourist attraction for the area, is also being dismantled bit by bit.

Madibeng Pulse received an email from a well-known resident of the De Rust area on the foot of the Witwatersberg with an alert about theft of the rail sections in that area. As always, willingness to be identified as a source in the public interest in the new South Africa is in inverse proportion to the incidence of crime in the new South Africa. “Please don’t mention my name, because these guys are obviously organised and I don’t want any repercussions from them,” our source said.

The email read: “I wish to report the wholesale theft of the railway lines all along the track (what is left of it) that passes Pecanwood Estate Westwards right along towards Hekpoort, recently. I estimate last week some 400 meters or more of lines have been cut and removed here in De Rust. I did notice a car parked in a strange manner last week when I went down towards the car it quickly drove away which prevented me getting make and number. But soon after, all the tracks are gone but still some left and it seems these thieves are able to cut and remove heavy steel without being spotted at night. They obviously use acetylene torches but have some method of hiding the flame and bright light. There must be quite a few thieves as the line is very heavy and to cart away 400 plus meters of double track is quite something. The lines I believe belong to the state not sure who to inform as not sure if SAPS really interested. Maybe Madibeng Pulse can assist?" - BD.

They live in sight of the railway line

While BD showed us the spot on Tuesday afternoon where the sections have been removed, two workers walked past on their way home after work and they knew more about the matter. They live in workers’ houses within sight of the old railway line and said they saw three men with a big truck on Monday morning about four o’clock loading the steel on the truck.

They also saw the green Toyota Cressida a few days earlier in that area, which DB saw, but when he drove down the dirt road to record their registration number the men sprinted back to the Cressida and drove off in a hurry.

According to Mr. Jack Seale of the Snake and Animal Park, the thieves first started breaking up the railway line and metal sleepers from the Pecanwood area to the Meerhof Bridge. “About three years ago a 3-ton flatbed truck painted yellow, with a light on top to make it look like an SA Railways vehicle, burst a tyre just round the corner from the Park, because it was overloaded. It came from the Pecanwood area. “When we investigated there was no one there, but we phoned the police and they took over from there but how it ended, I don’t know,” he said. “We never heard of a court case. “Where they sell the steel is also a mystery because scrap metal dealers are not supposed to buy the steel from railway lines. At the same time they also stole electrical cables from Oberon.”

Wives dropping husbands by car

Up to the ‘eighties the Pretoria-Magaliesberg train used to take office workers, mainly civil servants, to work and all along the R511 one could see wives dropping their husbands by car in the morning or waiting to take them home again in the afternoon. At about five thirty on Monday mornings the train’s choo-tjoe on its outward trip was a wakeup call for weekenders, who stretched their weekends for as long as possible to Monday morning before they joining the traffic jams in Randburg and Sandton to drop the children at school and rushing on straight to work.

According to Jack Seale, the regular train stopped running in the mid ‘eighties and since then it ran periodically for special occasions until 2002 when it finally stopped.

Speaking to Jack Seale about the early days of the little railway line which ran since about 1925 when Johan Schoeman, the founder of Hartbeespoort used it to sell stands as well as a tourist attraction to the area, it is obvious that the Pretoria-Magalies railway line is an important part of Hartbeespoort Dam’s heritage. “You should speak to the Railways,” Jack said, “they’ll have a lot of information on it.”

This suggestion is reinforced by memories of the choo-tjoeing of the little train in the dark mornings of the ‘eighties, followed shortly afterwards by the chimes of the bells of the Meerhof Catholic Church to complete the wakeup call. This also elicited nostalgia for a time when not everything had to be nailed down to prevent it from being carried away. Now not even being secured fast to carry the weight of a train prevents it from being privatised.

But we’ll get in touch with the Railways soon to complete nostalgia choo-tjoe trip into the past.

Due To A Swindle Reports Of The Demise Of The Pretoria-Magaliesburg Railway Line Were Premature
Monday 24 January 2011
By Dolf Dreyer
RIP Pretoria-Magaliesburg Railway line 1925 – 2010. This nostalgic farewell to the Pretoria-Magaliesburg railway, which is reportedly being broken up, and with it, dreams by tourist entrepreneurs to revive the service as a quaint tourist attraction, rippled more widely than just a nostalgic story of local interest.


The Historic Pretoria-Magaliesberg Choo-tjoe Train Line”
MadibengPulse reported last Monday - “It’s A Sad End Of The Line For The Historic Pretoria-Magaliesberg Choo-tjoe Train Line” - that Transnet has awarded a salvaging tender for the break-up and removal of the railway line, sleepers, cable and other fittings to a salvaging firm which tendered for it in July 2010.

The only practical effect, we thought, of the end of the line of the railway line, which has been inactive since 1996 when SARS stopped the combined passenger-freight service, was that entrepreneurs who dreamt of reviving the service as a tourist attraction, had their hopes finally dashed with the news.

The salvaging contract was authenticated by a letter from SARS, and certified by the Garankuwa Police Station as a copy without alterations, and presented to land owners where the successful salvagers started breaking up the railway line.

Teams of workers were breaking up the railway line
“I first became aware of the contract when I came upon teams of black workers under white supervision while they were breaking up the old railway line at Eagle Waters (previously Oberon),” Mr. Naas Grimbeek of Eagle Waters, told

MadibengPulse. “When I challenged them, they told me about the salvage contract and I asked them for something in writing.

“They went away and came back with a letter from Transnet Freight Rail Tenders which was certified by the SAPS in Garankuwa,” Naas Grimbeek said.

The letter was dated 20 July 2010 and signed by MS Maseleku, Consulting MGR. The conditions of the tender were that Transnet would take no responsibility for damage or injury as a consequence of the contract, that it was not transferable and that it was for one year only, after which time the salvagers should apply again under the original tender conditions.

The letter with police certification seemed genuine enough – especially because of the use of ‘excepted’ in stead of ‘accepted’ - and MadibengPulse published the sad story of the final demise of the Pretoria-Magaliesburg railway line.
But then, on Thursday we received an email from Mr. Colin Roberts of Kwena Rail, a non-profit infrastructure rail company dedicated to the preservation of disused branch lines.
Colin Roberts wrote that, due to our article, he alerted Transnet Branch Lines and on Wednesday, they arrested criminals stealing the track using a fraudulent tender document.

We publish Colin Roberts’ letter below as is:
From: "Colin Roberts" >colinr@global.co.za>
Date: Thu, January 20, 2011 11:33 am
To: info@madibengpulse.co.za

Attention Dolf Dreyer.

Hi Dolf,
Thanks to your excellent article on the rail line, we alerted Transnet Branch Lines.
They arrived on the scene yesterday, and have arrested criminals stealing the track using a fraudulent tender document or similar. No such award has been made by Transnet.

The line is actually one of a large number of branch lines, some no longer in use, and some still used. These are the subject of a major effort by Transnet to concession those where that is still possible, and where there is potential of some kind for the track to continue in some form of use.

We are involved in two companies that have been trying to get action going on saving the line for rail tourism - one of them for many years. You can get more information on what is happening on the crime front from Albert Links, of Transnet Branch Lines. We would like to see publicity given to the illegality of the track theft, as it may help to deter other criminals.

Aslo note, it's our understanding that you can't simply 'cancel' the servitudes along the line. It took an Act of Parliament to put them in place, and it may just be that an Act would be required to put them back. Just how this would happen, if it ever did, is a matter of some debate, but it is certainly not a simple process.
Kind regards,
Colin Roberts,
Kwena Rail.
(a start up not-for-profit infrastructure rail company)

A toll road across Meerhof Bridge
Mr. Colin Roberts of Kwena Rail did not say how he happened to get a copy of

the article in MadibengPulse but apparently it travels more readily than the little train on the Pretoria-Magaliesburg line.

Another consequence of the article is that Mr. Naas Grimbeek told MadibengPulse of his efforts – in conjunction with other property owners south of the Dam – to have the Meerhof Bridge closed in anticipation of getting the rights to build a not-for-profit toll road connecting Meerhof to destinations south of the Dam. Property owners in the vicinity of the bridge have endless problems with criminals using the bridge to cross for criminals forays. Electrical cables running over the bridge are also constant targets of criminals resulting in the properties they serve having continuous power outages.

There were handwritten names of a Louis and a Martin with telephone numbers written on the ‘authorisation’ document, but there was no answer at either of the numbers. Perhaps these two men were otherwise engaged; but we’ll keep trying and perhaps shed some further light on them and their salvaging operation.
We’ll also delve deeper into the interesting plans to construct a toll road across the Meerhof Bridge.

But those are tales for another day.


Stop press:
After our deadline we managed to speak to Mr. Louis Kleinschmidt of Brits who said that he and a partner were conned into paying a big amount for the “rights” to salvage the railway line, but the people who sold them the rights disappeared into thin air. The plot thickens, and MadibengPulse will do an update on this on Thursday – Dolf Dreyer.