Old steam engine gets place of honour in Kaapsehoop
This 6,5-ton engine dates back to 1910 and was part of the Industrial Revolution, when steam engines powered by coal and wood started to replace horse- and manpower at the turn of the previous century.
KAAPSEHOOP – An old steam engine has found a new place of honour in the upper area of Kaapsehoop.
Mitch McAllister from PPE Technologies in Mbombela is a keen collector of vintage cars and motorcycles. At the end of 2016 he attended an auction in Vanderbijlpark, where a privately owned cultural museum sold some of its items.
He was actually looking for a vintage motorcar when something else got his attention. It was an old steam engine.
When his wife Yolandi and he saw the engine, they immediately thought of a picture that they had seen in the book by Hans Bornman, Kaapsche Hoop – Village in the Mist.
It was a picture of a similar steam engine that ran the El Diablo battery at the Kaapsehoop gold mine in Battery Creek.
They immediately decided that this similar engine must go back to Kaapsehoop as a wonderful memory of a bygone era.
“We succeeded with our bidding and then had to transport the steam engine from Vanderbijlpark on a ten-ton truck. It must have been quite a precarious trip for our truck driver, Chris Kriger! We brought it back to our workshop in Mbombela where it was restored.
It was sandblasted, derusted, undercoated and repainted so that it could look decent again, and survive,” McAllister explained.
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This was a costly operation, as a foundation where the steam engine was going to be mounted had to be laid according to engineering specification.
Bejabi Logistics took the steam engine from the workshop at PPE Technology to Kaapsehoop. McAllister said this gift from PPE Technology to the community of Kaapsehoop has given him great joy, because he has a very strong bond with this village, where he bought a getaway house a few years ago.
“My
mother was born in Kaapsehoop in 1924. Her father completed his junior school in Kaapsehoop during and just after the Boer War. Both my mom’s oumas were shopkeepers in Kaapsehoop and my parents are buried in the Kaapsehoop cemetery.
“When I grew up in Salisbury, Rhodesia, my mom told us stories of walking up from one of the mines down in the valley, uphill to Kaapsehoop. For her it was always this dream place,” McAllister said.
The green steam engine, with its big pillar box red wheels and cheeky chimney, is now another interesting viewpoint in Kaapsehoop.
McAllister said although he is excited, the whole operation is not finished yet. Soon a stainless steel plaque will be put up at the steam engine in remembrance of his mother’s side of the family, as well as his parents, who are buried in Kaapsehoop. Only then he will feel satisfied.
May this old steam engine always bring back fond memories of a time when Kaapsehoop buzzled with gold miners, hoping for a day that they will find their fortune.
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