Friends of the Rail Forum

As an experiment, here's a picture of 12A No.1970 'Milly' at De Aar in 1972.

She was the shedmaster's pet engine and he made sure that she was always kept spick and span. Unfortunately, I have forgotten his name; can anybody remind me?



Clicking on the picture will, I hope, take you to the website and some other pictures.

Greetings from England,

Thanks. Its actually 15A 1970 not 12A 1970.

Alec Watson?

Dylan Knott wrote:Thanks. Its actually 15A 1970 not 12A 1970.

Alec Watson?

Thanks for correcting me on that; we are hoping to move house shortly and all my railway books are already packed away in boxes. I am therefore without my usual works of reference (and suffering from severe withdrawal symptoms!)

But you are right about the shedmaster. I remembered that it was a Mr. Watson, but had fogotten that it was Alec. He used to keep a Visitors' Book and everybody that visited the shed was asked to sign it. There were some quite well known names in there when we signed it.

I wonder what happened to it?

A photo of Milly in Cape Town on the late 90's with a Union Limited. She now lies at Epping redundant. Her partner in the photo is a 16DA

At some stage she lost her original tender. Anyone know when or why this happend?

I also noticed the change in Tenders. I prefer the old one. It has character. I noticed the 25 in the back of Ron's photo with the Banjo Fire Box

Think there is a spare one at Voorbaai.
What type of tender does 1791 have?

Another couple of interesting points:

In the first pic with the old-style tender, the loco has a later twin sealed-beam headlight. Whilst in the second pic with the different (presumed later) tender, the loco has a single (older style?) headlight.

The loco name "Milly" is beneath the headlight whereas, in the first pic, the loco name (unreadable) appears arched over the second of the coupled-wheel splashers.

All of this is strange... if the second pic was taken later than the first, amongst other things, why is the headlight not the later type as seen fitted in the first picture?

I also note that in the second pic, the cast numberplate (No. 1970) is missing off the front buffer-beam. Was this removed later?

In the second pic there are no chromed stanchions on the front of the loco, although these are present in the first pic.

In the first pic the smokebox door has decorations on it, missing in the second pic.

In the second pic, the cowcatcher has an additional extension lip at the bottom, painted red. This extension is missing in the first pic.

And finally in the second pic, the handrail loops completely over the top of the smokebox, but has a sizeable gap in it in the first pic.

Of course many of these changes could have been done during trips to the shops. But I do have to pose the question: are these two pics of exactly the same loco? Was the name "Milly" possibly switched between two locos of this type?

Must be as there were only two 15A's at the time. Interesting observations nonetheless!
I never saw Milly with bufferbeam plates when she was down here.
You probably find that when she went into storage all the decorations etc were removed.
The name Milly has always been associated with #1970. The name was removed for a period when she worked out of Dal though. I quite prefer the name on the sides.