When South Africa’s Railway Services (Transnet) discontinued daily steam operations in the early 1990’s, an interest group (Reefsteamers) was established in Johannesburg, with the main objectives to preserve and rebuild old steam locomotives.

This group comprises people from all walks of life such as business executives, engineers and pensioners, most of whom spent many years in the employ of the Railways. All work is done on a voluntary basis and no one is paid any remuneration whatsoever.

To fund the group and to keep it going they offer day trips for the public and when the opportunity arises, they run longer tours for steam enthusiasts to generate revenue to plough it back into the preservation of locomotives and rolling stock. Special events are also organized from time to time.

Such an event was organized in June 2017, when the steam train (Vreni) was challenged by vintage planes and automobiles in a 35 mile race to the small village of Magaliesburg.

I used a Canon 7D Mark 2 to capture this image. The lens used was a Canon 100-400 zoom f5.6, 1/640 sec, f8, ISO 200