Great Train Race | Family Day - Restored Rovos Rail Steam engine

The pics are by Black Rock Studio – and they have heaps more on their site.

And you can purchase pics from the day right here

Well…. actually, that is a bit of a misnomer, but it was still a spectacular day out anyway. Everything with wheels and an engine from the late 1800’s through the early 1900’s and up to an early 80’s 3 litre V6 Cortina bakkie all gathered early on Saturday morning at the Heidelberg airfield for a cavalcade through the town of Heidelberg and onto the station platform where they were met by a beautifully restored and maintained Rovos Rail Steam engine.

So, planes, trains, automobiles, motorcycles, static engines to a homebuilt hobbyist steam engine, pulling a bunch of wagons full of gleeful kids around the airfield and an early electric ‘Horseless carriage’ or ‘High Wheeler’.

It was a fun day with lots of people dressed up in period clothing, plenty to look at and pose with for pics. Period correct music, albeit it with recogniseable modern lyrics was being piped through the festival atmosphere, food and beverage stalls were doing roaring trade as were the trinket shops. A helicopter was offering flips for a birds eye view of the festivities and the queue to get onto the ‘footboard’ of the steam engine just never seemed to get any shorter. It really was a very lekker day.

The all electric ‘High Wheeler’ was taking people around the airfield and it was amusing to watch the many curious stares it got as it trundled silently through the throngs of people. So many people seem to believe that electric vehicles are a 21st century invention when actually they pre-date internal combustion engine vehicles by around 25 years. It took about 10 years for the clever folk back then to work out how to build rechargeable batteries.

We, however, were in attendance to slobber and drool over all the gorgeously restored and meticulously maintained motorcycles of yesteryear. Sadly, there were not as many as we might have liked to see, but those that were there were really incredible…. and every single one of them rode in the cavalcade, which was really special to experience.

Some of the stands out machines for us were the BSA Golden Flash, a well ridden and exceptionally maintained Velocette, a 1934 Norton, a 1952 Triumph T100 Tiger, a 1926 Triumph Flat Tanker, a Sunbeam, a Rudge Whitworth and an exceptionally rare Vincent Black Prince.

A bunch of original Royal Enfields, including a modern contender that managed to fit in seamlessly, were also in attendance as was a 1936 Norton set up for Regularity Rallies.

For us, the star of the show was a stunningly beautiful what we guess must be a 1923, (or thereabouts), 600cc Indian Scout. Unfortunately we didn’t get an opportunity to chat to the owner but, boy oh boy it was a beauty.

Other than the widely hot strong winds and one or two minor organisational issues…. it really was a superb event, well attended, all smiling and excitedly pointing and posing.

This was the fourth year of this event, (we think), and it is just going to get even bigger and better – check out the pics, they tell the story so much better than our ramblings.