S1 – Ep 452 – Winelands Light Railway, Stellenbosch!

Our visit to Winelands Light Railway felt like a delightful return to childhood as we revelled in the joy of riding on scale model steam trains just outside Stellenbosch. Meeting Andries Keyser, the ingenious mind behind this extensive operation and master builder of model trains, was a stroke of luck. His passion for his craft was palpable as he shared insights into the effort invested by him, his mentors and friends. Witnessing the culmination of their dedication, seeing the smiles on the faces of both children and parents, filled us with immense happiness. We left with warm wishes for their continued success and a profound sense of gratitude for such a wonderful experience. #DustBugs #adventuretravel #southafrica #southafricavlog #travelongravel #winelandslightrailway #stellenbosch

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[Applause] [Applause] hello as you can see we are here at the winelands light Railway uh it’s not far out of stalos very close to the N1 and we have decided to come to this place because we heard that it’s got scale model steam engines as you can hear and uh we are

Crazy about these old steam trains so we thought we better come and have a look because we heard that the owner says that it was a passion of his that got out of control so that went too far yes and um for me I heard that his first one

Was a third scale model of the train this the steam engine that connected byra to Umali that has special significance to me because my parents honey mooned in Birra and um my oldest brother was born in Umali which is mut today yes yes yes so we’re going to pack

Up and go got beautiful parking over here you can have a look all the cars are under the shade beautiful area yes so we’re going to pack our things our picnic that we brought for the day and go and explore the place and see what it looks like how

Many hectors did I said is like 7 and a half or something like that I can’t remember now quite a big area so let’s go and check it out thank you so much thank you so much so we’ve just paid it’s 70 Rand for third class which I am today for a

Single uh ride and entry and you first class unlimited ride 190 total for the two of us and um we just learned that the owner andrees um built his first um replica steam engine when he was 19 and he named her Dorene after his mother Dorene and yes Dorene dor in all her

Glory we’re so happy to be here today thank you nice to have you here thanks dor all right beautiful yeah oh look here they got animals there is that a Bo look like goats and things be where animals bite this is a beautiful place eh oh they all goats there’s one too

Yes we’ll check them out when they come out and then lots of is it copper sculptures kudu no it’s steel oh is it steel yeah giraffe sure and lots and lots of fever trees I love the fever trees eh even your goats have got shade you

See yeah I love that I’m just checking it out it’s turned out to be a beautiful day this is a big place so there’ll be a lot of walking today which uh you will do alone for the most part but look how beautiful this canopy is yeah under the trees yeah it

Is gorgeous how families can you imagine children perfect place for them and for don’t do that Families there’s even a tunnel the train goes through there I’m not going to fo it now but I can see them going through the tunnel and what about the little bridge and there’s a bridge and everything and a metal bridge too and a crocodile crocodile you’re going to get your

Exercise in today but it’s so nice yeah it’s wonderful this is where we’re going to sit to have a bit of a lunch right next to the railway station and tracks as usual we always have to eat something wherever we go so on our way here we stopped in Somerset West and bought

Ourselves two small pizzas one barbecue chicken and pineapple which Sonia loves yes and a Tangy Russian which I love and Coke Zero and there’s no alcohol allowed here so I am going to be Jo enjoying Co zero as well yes and this is the extent of our picnic today that’s it

Platform One platform two it’s like their official okay everybody ready back for two Board If it doesn’t have a sprayer bit on then it can up quick how cool this lady and Is a rail Crossing soone has to be careful if you check this is a serious Narrow Gauge line cuz this is a liter Coke [Laughter] bottle how cool is This okay everybody ready Platform One think it’s Tru to bring water or Maybe SC Why Yeah This is so Cool that it’s a genuine steam train but a miniature one Thank you tunnel Yeah All this is s enjoyable so many people come here with their children I think the dads are enjoying it more than what the kids are because I’m enjoying It big crocodile That that’s the station it’s all the passengers waiting for the train to arrive there’s a looks like a diesel one on platform too I want to try and get out to that one that’s Antelope Kudo Sao I don’t know what this one is maybe an Impala Giraffe more people coming in I am seriously Impressed I going to be speaking to the Mastermind behind all of this Andres Get some special you really think I’m going to reach so this one looks like a diesel It’s actually electric and Andre buil this as well it’s his fourth one that he buil yeah number four of 2016 and the charge lasts about 2 days so this is Andres in his workshop and uh he’s going to explain to us now why he started this whole setup here because if you were with me on the one ride now and it’s like incredible so Andre why did you start this I don’t

Know can’t remember it’s so long ago so I mean I’m 37 this year I’ve been doing this since I was 13 wow and um the thing is these are skills that that’s not taught at University or any sort of college I don’t think I’ve never really seen anybody that’s come from

Establishments like that that do this sort of stuff this is homebuilt uh I mean the guys that build these things back in the day they taught me um and they taught all of the guys that are involved here basically so we’ve we’ve grown up through the ranks

Learning from these guys and they are disappearing at an alarming rate how crazy so unfortunately we’ve lost a lot of friends over the past few years uh particularly since Co and um the the the skills are disappearing so it’s a very stressful place to be so why did I start

It man I was obsessed with trains from a young age your mother told us as we came in and um when I joined the model Engineers I joined it purely because I wanted to play toy trains I mean there’s no way a youngster can go and drive big

Trains exactly so I mean it’s it’s almost accessible it’s small enough to get into but the guys involved in this thing first of all all English and I’m just a Dutchman so I had to learn to speak English very quickly at the age of

13 and um I had to but up the old guys and and get them to allow me to just touch their stuff cuz all I wanted to do was just just see it play with it anyways eventually they they I gained their trust and they let me loose on

Their steam engines so uh but within a few years of driving trains you quickly become bored of it okay and then you get into building it because this is actually the fun part of it building the train building it making all these bits and pieces when you when you drive it I

Mean it’s good fun but we go around around in circles all the time it’s it does become quite boring eventually but you can actually make this stuff uh and once you realize that you can make anything um you know the sky is the limit you can build anything you want

Anything you see you can make what I found interesting was the first one that you built was a replica of the one that used to travel from uh entirely to that’s right so how I started with that it’s it’s a it’s a pretty big yet small locomotive it’s 1895 model wow design so

1895 you must understand this is a this is a 1906 1904 model it’s 10 years later okay they became very big very quickly but these things didn’t last very long because they were actually too small for what the railways needed so they were scrapped within like 5 to 10 years oh

Wow so dorine is based on a LLY slight modifications um and that was sisle John rhs’s train that ran between brra and and T the only access the British had into Ria because of course the Dutchman cut them off in the transv everything went by the twoot Nar gauge on the the

Line wow 222 Mi of naras track through the bush barely any stonework it was laid in a hell of a rush and within 5 years the track was considered to be too light for the traffic and it was all scrapped I know so these engines 44 of

Them ended up across southern Africa at Sugar Mills uh some of them ended up at zead estate in the northern Province zealer at the turn of the century was such a big operation he can Pro provide every eighth person on Earth with an orange was massive so these little

Engines were pulling out oranges out of saying the Narrow Gauge is similar to the apple express one yes twoot gauge 24 in gauge okay yes uh it is a very inferior gauge as far as uh well today’s standards are considerate uh it was was built to compete with an ox wagen oh boy

It’s a very light way of of of moving Freight or cheap way of doing it particularly if you got mountainous terrains of course it can go around Benz very easily and it’s it’s far cheaper than Cape cage to go uh South Africa we obviously have uh Cape gauge which is 3′

6 that’s our standard and then in Europe we’ve got 4′ 8 and A2 which is n internationally known as standard gauge so even our broad gauge is considered Narrow Gauge internationally wow and we are stuck with it that’s why our trains don’t really work because they’re actually too small to compete on an

International scale oh we had the ability back in the day to move massive amounts of of traffic on it even on this so-called INF Furia gauge but if you really want to keep with the times you need broad gauge okay so this is Narrow Gauge it is it’s basically a um steam

Powered Ox Wagon at the end of the day it’s it’s it is sophisticated but it’s not that sophisticated there’s obviously lots of components in this yes uh diesel locomotive on the other hand you stick a key in it and it goes this thing the entire engine is outside everything that

Makes the steam engine go forward also wants to kill it so the ash for example that comes out of the Firebox if mixed with water becomes acidic uh and it just eats through metal so these engines standing outside stations you’ll see there’s holes rusted straight through them yes

Because there’s Ash in there and from standing outside for years you’ll see down straight straight through the metal yes so that’s why they require an enormous amount of energy to keep keep going and you’ll see that’s why they all got female names they’re incredibly difficult some days but they’re extremely pretty to

Look at so um exactly we’ve kept with a tradition Bonnie of course is built by um Charles fun from Petoria absolute Master steam engine builder taught us a lot oh wow and uh Bon is obviously his partner uh his dad’s engine which is running today Uncle S’s is no longer

With us but that’s named after his mom lady an lady an okay and um they built the two engines together at the same time this one is obviously in the shop now for a little bit of Maintenance and this was she stripped down completely there’s the boiler lying over there

That’s getting a new set of tubes which I’ll show you just now all of the the mechanical movement here has been um tightened up and new bin pins and bushes made up so she’ll be good to go for another few years this engine was completed in 2001 if I’m not mistaken uh

Since coming here she’s done quite a lot of work so it is overdue there’s the cab standing it’s got a brand new coat of varnish on it looking all smart all the brass fittings is being uh remachined and made made tight steam tight so um

Should last for a good few years this is one of the best engines in the fleet here okay really does a lot of work uh very efficient if I say efficient steam engines aren’t efficient coal burning locomotives on the scale correct me if I’m wrong you’re the scientists out

There but as far as we know is about 3% efficient oh wow but you can burn anything as long well we burn coal it’s it’s just better for the boilers uh they can burn wood but it doesn’t last that long the calorific value of wood is obviously much lower

Than steam yes uh so we burn coal when we can find it oh you struggled to find oh yeah because since Co just just just out of Interest since Co coal has gone up from 1,000 round a ton we now paying 4 and a half th000 R A Time what so the

Cost of running these things are it’s absolutely getting out of hand wow it is very worrying uh material wise as well very expensive to to replace bushes and that sort of stuff so you know people come to these kind of operations they see o steam trains and cars in the

Parking lot this guy is making a killing I’m going to do the same imagine you need all of this stuff just to keep these things alive you need you need a crew of people continuously working on them uh it’s it’s we do it because we

Love it it’s a passion it’s no it’s not a passion it is a it’s a mental disorder a normal person would look at this and go what is wrong with you people but there’s just something about a steam engine it’s you know as it stands it’s a

Big dead lump of metal but when you make a fire in it it comes alive it it actually breathes yeah true uh when you you have to work with it very carefully because it will bite you it’s it’s it’s a living it’s a mechanical horse at the

End of the day true that’s what they called them back in the day it is it is it’s interesting thing is I mean when these things first came out when Stevenson’s rocket was about doing about 46 km an hour human beings had never gone that fast so it it was preached

Against that these things are from the devil and man traveling at that sort of speeds the skin would peel off his face pregnant woman will abort and horses will die or fright so um I mean we’ve come a hell of a long way if you think

About it uh the the world speed record for a steam engine was was set in the 1940s I’m just get my dates right here it still stands to this day a locomotive by the name of malard w um 126 or 127 M hour for a steam for a

Steam engine that’s crazy I must get it right there’s two speed records one is for a steam car I think that’s 127 mph 1906 2 years before the Model T was invented and the steam locomotive of course I think it’s 124 uh that stands to this day so

There’s two steam locomotives on this planet with a world record incredible that one in the York Railway Museum yes and Dorene standing down at the yard also holds a guine world record for the longest distance traveled in 24 hours we achieved uh 33 km going round and round

In circles your train that you built my actual engine standing down there so that’s what it’s sort of known for that’s an incredible achievement we beat the the British by 60k so they slightly annoyed with me but it’s fine we have a a hate hate love relationship so

Hopefully yes one day they’ll beat us again and then we’ll take it on take it and beat them again because this Railway is built long and straight exactly for that reason when we did the record back in Peter Marburg we used the track that we had okay and uh it was 336

M uh this is 760 M long piece of Railway line it’s long eh but the straights are long and straight so you can really floor it okay you can’t really go around corners fast for these things so you can’t lean to the corner like a motorbike so they want to fall over so

To maintain your speed you need to bank the curves all right uh but here we’ve got the long straight so we can really floor it okay we travel here at about 8ks an hour on average 8 to 10 km an hour fast walking pace yes it’s a safe

Pace for for rail operation uh the top speed I think we reached there was about 35 km an hour wow so and it can go faster but it’s terrified with dor that’s crazy absolutely terrifying that is amazing Eh okay so here we have the lathe uh and this that we’re busy with here is the boiler tubes for the uh boiler we’re busy restoring at the back there okay and what we’ve done now I’m not going to cut anything because it’s already just been

Cut to size we going to turn that as you can see the job turns uh oh it’s basically held in the truck and the cutting tool stands still okay yes so we will move the tool into there and it will start start cutting this this leave over here

Okay okay uh various different types of tools obviously do also the different things this is a boring bar this goes inside the pipe for example or something that you want to make hollow that’s a boring head there uh then we’ve got a parting tool here that splits it splits

The job off that’s a short little flat one uh and then there’s tools for cutting threads and all sorts of various these are all tip tools now that little part there is replaceable but uh you can also grind your own tools so we occasionally make tools if you got

Special sort of round things that we need to make that is the basics of a lathe the important thing to know with this is the smaller the job the faster it has to turn Okay because of the peripheral speed all right so um a component that size we can really speed

It up here that’s the speeds over there just run it here oh wow look at that a bit faster uh but the bigger the diameter the slower the job has to turn because the peripheral speed is much higher all right uh and what happen happens is the tool starts burning it

Gets hot and gets hot so we got coolant that we run on it um but that’s why the bigger the locomotive the longer it takes because there’s so much more metal to work the smaller it is the quicker you can make it but then again the detail work becomes very tricky which

I’ll show you now so that’s the lathe over there we’ve got a milling machine we can walk over here this is a machine for making Square things got a cutter in there at the moment it is Switched Off um and then over there is a very old

Mil but it is a CNC operated machine so it looks quite Antiquated 1980s model this but it’s German made and it’s extremely strong okay so good quality so it’s a good quality machine and um these things are being kicked out of machine shops all over the country because

They’re too slow okay so if you running a production facility it’s not worth having a machine like this you want something that that’s 10 times faster cutting wise because time is money yes and we have no electricity so that’s true the gaps when you have electricity

You got to make Parts as quickly as you can so that’s that’s the basics of it we obviously put the drob in there Cutters go in there you can do the programming over there and it will do the job for you do what you tell it to do if you

Well you better know what you’re telling it because if you don’t it crashes the job oh seriously makes quite a mess I can imagine okay so we go over that side excuse the mess here an active Workshop you have to have that for this environment because outside everything

Is hot Yep this is a model makers Workshop that’s a more indust TR machine shop okay um so the lathe we just looked at here is a baby version of it this is a mord lathe W here we go it is Imperial and that means every time you

Work on it you must remember that 4 th is .1 mm and you got to continuously think about there’s a parting tool at the back here and then you can see some of the smaller homemade tools that we grind uh there’s a drill in the truck there so people say

Oh but this isn’t turning you don’t have to the drill stand still the job is turning job’s turning yes so just out of Interest this is a a wooden pattern for a locomotive wheel all right obviously too big to go in there it’ll go in the

Big Lo but this is how Wheels were made in the old days you would have made up a pattern out of wood if you look closely this is all individual pieces that the guy had made this is for a South African Railway 16 E-class locomotive the original engine this was 6t in

Diameter imagine a pattern their size I mean taller than what I am um not taller than what I am about as tall so uh but I mean in England they had locomotives with much bigger Wheels 7 and 8 ft it’s incredible Built For Speed uh this would be stamped into the sand

And then you cast metal into it okay so that’s a solid cast well this is a wooden pattern and then it’s a cast steel wheel but you must also remember when you’re casting metal it’s it’s at a certain temperature obviously molten so it’s much bigger than the final product

So this is a certain percentage bigger when it cools down it shrinks and then you stick it back in the LA and then you turn it to size so the walls are always much thicker than what you needed this is the counterbalance and the reason for

This on the big ones these would have been packed with lead uh it’s to counterbalance the reciprocal motion of the mechanical arms on the side at this these things could do 120 140 K an hour what so your balancing had to be perfect if it wasn’t it would Shake itself to

Pieces I can imagine it’s like the wheel balancing on a car exactly the same thing this is a shaping machine we’ll just set that going uh I think the globe was just blown in an earlier demonstration in Africans it’s called a STK arum scarf machine St arum okay I’ve

Never heard that word before the other day I had a gentleman through here and he said to us that’s what it’s called so I’ve learned something that’s brilliant uh this this is obviously shaping the block there’s a cutting tool in there I can see that and it’s not

Cutting at the moment cuz I haven’t set it to go but it will cut and when it returns this little block lifts okay lifts and it doesn’t burn the tool so let’s set it going and then we set it there and away it goes very slow also very Antiquated machine I’ve never seen

Anything this size normally these things are quite large but this was made redundant by the milling machine okay so we just like it because it looks like a steam engine and it works internals it’s got arms that that work like a steam locom but I you can do small fin we

Still do I made quite a few parts on this so far it’s just slow you just let it go in the background and it it does its thing yeah it’s almost through there and then when you get to the other side you will reset it set the tools slightly lower and it

It will work its way back there it’s finishing the job now so we just run it off the job done and we switch it off fantastic so I mean that was quick but that’s a pretty tiny little component there and the nice thing about it is it’s perfectly straight yeah because

This this works in as long as this thing is not worn out and it’s working upwards it will give you a straight action movement this is a horizontal Mill oh good the light works uh similar sort of concept as a milling machine except the machine surface is in this

This orientation cutting keyways on this very handy uh you can do all sorts of fun stuff on it you can also stack these these discs together to get a greater surface area but again the limitations of this is you can’t take too much of a heavy cut because it’s a very light

Machine the heavier the machine is the more robust bigger the cuts you can can do with it um yeah and then we have simple things I mean right down to this sort of thing this is a drill press uh we haven’t wired this one in yet because it it’s actually three-phase okay we

Just put the plug in there but this is an old German made thing still says on the front here when I first got it from this this particular collection of machines I couldn’t open this damn top until I realized you ever heard a sound like

This look at that I mean it’s just so well made and it’s extremely accurate you can set the different speeds with the Bel so that’s so gain just like the L the bigger the diameter of the drill yes the slower the job goes so that’s how you adust that now this Workshop

Comes out of a guy’s collection called Ron ETA and from n now and Ron was a prolific locomotive builder in this country uh he passed away at the age of 92 and the family contacted me so we bought up the um the machine shop but Ron designed many engines like the one

In the background here uh won prizes for it all over the place um incredible works of art and he’s also gone so you know there’s more information lost there what’s nice about Ron’s stuff is he documented almost anything anything and everything that he made so we’ve got stacks of

Drawings and and notes of making components uh so we can still use it to this day um a lot of the stuff we we make here we still use as formulas very handy Stuff shows you what the older guys did but I mean you look at a

Workshop and you think you know you need a lathe but you then you need all the dyes that go with it nice and Dusty here there there’s there’s dyes yet to cut cutting a thread like that I will show you where this is used just now but you

Know this is like Dental delicacy definitely heart heart surgery stuff I’ll show you this this belongs to this locomotive let’s take a walk then I’ll show you this engine is made was originally started by a guy called Johnny Shar from fville uh it was then taken over by

Patrick eaman who built this mag bicent tender for it everything here works if you look at the suspension it’s a bit Dusty now but all the compensating gear this is called a buck I Bogi it’s a very complicated thing to manufacture but all the little Parts work just like the real

Thing this is 112 scale let me put some compressed air on it you can see it working okay so after many years you get to this stage you quickly put a piece of pipe onto it you set your valve timing and when you turn the compressor on it

Comes to life oh wow it’s the most amazing feeling in the world I can imagine it’s this is the closest any human will ever have to having Godly Powers you breathe life into a dead machine that’s forwards and that’s backwards you can see how all the timing

That little link is slightly loose there yes but there you can see exactly the movement this to me is poetry in motion it’s not Qui it’s mechanical art this is brilliant eh so this is many years worth of toil to get this faring it’s not finished yet it’s strong enough this

Should be able to pull about 10 people this one yeah on a level piece of track easily but we don’t run these things really here because this is a commercial operation okay and um we need to run the big engines obviously to keep everything alive but ultimately we will have a

Track where we can play with this sort of stuff but this this should do totally out of the love of it uh it is obviously worth a lot at the end of the day but it’s worth more more to us because you know the guys that do this

Sort of stuff did this because they they enjoyed it like like we enjoyed it exactly this I’ll bring this component out here this guy Uncle Nick who’s unfortunately no longer with us uh him and Ron ETA for example Master model makers this is the the knuckle coupler

This is the mechanical hands that hold the train together this is the the cou for here now Patrick didn’t make this Uncle Nick at this and he gave it to him as a present shortly before his death but it works just like the real thing put them

Together and it won’t That’s How Train holds hands it it it’s incredibly strong so that’s the couplers for you Uncle Nick made he made this he machined this himself he made that from solid Nick made many engines that’s incredible the poppet family everything they do is just better than everything we anything we

Can do I hate them I see the boxy Uncle Mick oh wow so it’s it’s pretty damn special but we’re lucky you know traditionally I I say traditionally but there’s very few examples of a father doing this and his son being interested in it yes many of the engines we got is

Because the kids aren’t interested okay I mean I wasn’t interested in what my dad did either so hear me talking but it freaks me out that these sort of things are sitting in garages somewhere disappearing or being sold overseas because they have no worth in this country oh they’re only worth something

Overseas that’s if you took the hours to produce this and you had to monetize it it’s it’s actually you know UNC yeah you can’t yeah and if you look put a monetary value you look at this this is something Uncle Nick also made but as I

Say in in the poppit’s case Nick’s son Rocco and his grandson are still continuing the hobby okay and and they are Master Engineers everything detail I don’t know how well you can see this but there’s actual writing on there what you’ll be a able to see my fingerprint that’s incredible this pumps

Water no it’s not a dummy there’s a little valve in there everything has a seat on I mean you know Uncle Nick was an old man when he made this I mean he was an old man when I met him they all the guys were all always old but what I’m

Thinking now and they they had the stability in their hands to do this sort of stuff what patience don’t you have to make something like this well you say that but at the same time some of these model makers can be cont old buggers because all they want to do is to be

Left alone to go and manufacture these sort of things in their garages and as kids when we we rocked up at the model engineers and we talked you know you try and sort of butter these guys up they were terrifying oh really it was you

Know I mean if you have the ability to do this sort of stuff surely you must be a difficult old must be but they’re actually such nice people and once you befriend them they won’t shut up and they want to share their experience they actually want to share it so but I mean

Those little bolts there yes 1.2 mm diameter shank that’s made that’s not bought and that’s the threads that you showed that you cut with those dyes some of them is cut with a Dy some of them are machined on the LA so uh it’s just you know I’m in

Absolute awe of this sort of thing don’t blame so that that goes down there and that will pump the water into the boiler okay up there that’s the Overflow pipe and it works just like the real thing perfect incredible Andres thank you so much for your time I appreciate you spending all

This time with me and uh I’m sure we’re going to have so many comments and responses to this video of ours we’ve started doing Workshop tours on weekends now okay uh it’s very popular it’s actually a big pain in the backside cuz you got no work done but people standing

Around here talking trains all day but at least people can experience now tell me do you do this full-time or is this a part time this is my job is this your full-time job it’s ruined my hobby I used to do this to get away from the

World okay okay you know you’d spend evenings in your Workshop Tinker tinkering away making stuff um now the world is in our backyard every weekend but then again you don’t go to work now you go and do your well I go to work I walk out of my house half dirty and I

Don’t have to drive anywhere it’s just fantastic uh we do this here we’ve got a few other rail projects across the country okay um but yeah I’ve unfortunate made this a career I’m the only person really doing this on a commercial Bas basis is still doing it

As a hobby but we have to do as a commercial operation because there’s no funding available to preserve this stuff I understand that so unless you are a rupit or a you know a qu Becker or somebody with a financial backing to do this it’s not going to

Survive yeah and another thing I want to mention is that you built the tram at Century City yes there’s the spare wheels for it down there we built it in this Workshop down there the red ones the red ones okay so um that’s a spare

Set we always keep a spare SP handy oh so you that that your mother told us that you built that there at we built that here in this Workshop it wasn’t a workshop this is all new we’ve just we’ve just closed it off but we built it

Here I say always say my workshop started under a tree because it started in a a cattle feed shed wow then I moved I got married and it moved into a little garage Then I then it got busy and I moved into a four house with four garages because there

Was a lot of space for all the stuff yes and then we moved to Cape Town or stallin BOS and we packed it all into container and I worked out of a container for about 4 years in this heat in this I can imagine so you know people

Come here and they see their stuff o this must be a millionaires place not it’s made from scratch one two those dirty hands and worn out shoes one engine became two two became four and today we look after other people’s machines because there is no other place

To send it and they too happy to send them to you because at least at least it lives the story is the story must get told yeah and uh that’s what we like doing Andre thank you so much great pleasure this place is beautiful but you

Need to be a a good strong Walker because there’s a lot of walking here unfortunately I don’t fall into that category but I have a passenger who just boarded a train and who I am waiting at the train tracks to come by so let me

See if I can spot him and give him a wave my passenger is not on this one I believe this is a little diesel one but I hear the whistle of the steam one in the distance I think it just crossed the bridge there a not a

This is the perfect place for children we saw birthday parties it’s emptied out a little it looks like this is quite a nice time to come when it’s quieter there’s no waiting time for the trains um it’s absolutely amazing the passion these guys have have for the what is it craft yeah he’s

Coming hi so authentic it’s super cool I hope we never grow up I’ve gone through the tunnel which I did not see and there I see the little [Laughter] cap the biggest gr Ever switch switch okay was gone I didn’t know so this one is also built by Andre number five he does such neat Work back over the back lock In Sh okay what that’s good yes dorin the first locomotive that Andre’s bought 2012 number one 2012 and this is the one that holds the the record on the 10th of December this locomotive completed a journey of 330 kilomet in 24 hours setting a new world record that’s mindblowing so this is

Anna uve number number two built by H paling in 1989 look at this this work is phenomenal DHR S and S both 1997’s Petoria sa Loco number seven locomotive works look at this this is so well done thank you than you I’m going say these things blow my mind oh it’s the coffee shop with some interesting items inside Here y you just smell the coffee Hoy looks like a pedal Bike where going say again I love these old tracted Yeah For TR she to move around and stay And this is our train [Laughter] driver there’s so much fun in games for the kids here so much space for them to play and enjoy themselves look wheel bearers they even play y two pitches courts what are they called pitches I think good Heavens that’s

Cool this is a very cool place I love it yeah I love it yeah so I saw a few birthday parties and I never saw the sign here that says reserved for a birthday Crossing that’s quite nice yeah people have lots of fun here especially the little ones yes has this giraffe as

Well yo it’s a massive Rhino as well prehistoric Rhino there that’s for sure hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey look how it’s coming through the fever trees yes how awesome is this frits this is frits bye bye we are ending right where we started

Today wow what a fantastic day but I am unfortunately not fit enough to enjoy it thoroughly I know I had to do a lot of sitting around waiting for you but for people who can walk this is the place people with young children grandchildren this is the place to go

Absolutely is the place to go for The Young and the young at heart I mean it is just fantastic yeah I agree all around I we bring your picnic it became a little windy this afternoon it did it did but um it it’s just a a a great

Great family outing I think I thoroughly enjoyed it I enjoyed speaking to andrees the man loves what he does he’s really he’s he’s a typical example of someone who has turned his passion into something fulltime but it’s a big job that he’s tackled yeah it’s a hard job

It’s a major operation that he started yeah but he loves it but I also want to say thank you for joining us on this episode if you enjoyed it please give us a thumbs up subscribe down below and we’ll see you in the next episode bye