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| Umtwalume Valley Estates No.2 or UVE No.2 for short
was built by the Avonside Engine Company in Bristol England for Reynolds
Brothers. UVE No.2 is a 9 1/4" x 14" design (cylinder
diameter x stroke), works number 2065 of 1933. She was the second
last Avonside built for the sugar estates tramways in South Africa.
Similar locomotives were built by Hunslet Engine Company who took over
Avonside in 1935, one of these was UVE No.1. This indicates that the
number was only applied later in life, at least after 1937 when UVE No.1
was built. Bought by Reynolds Brothers for use on their South Coast sugar estates, she is known to have worked on the Umtwalume and most probably Sezela systems. These tramways where used up until approximately 1970 when they where replaced by road transport. UVE No. 2 received a replacement boiler from Hunslet in the 1950's. Preserved as a static exhibit at Midmar dam, UVE No.2 was completely overhauled in Durban and later at Midmar in the late 1980's for use on the now defunct Midmar Steam Railway. UVE No.2 was first steamed in preservation in 1991 and remained in use on the Midmar Steam Railway until it closed. She was then stored on a farm at Merrivale until moved to Mason's Mill in Pietermaritzburg. There she was overhauled, receiving a new smokebox and new side tanks and in now in use on the Paton's Country Narrow Gauge Railway at Ixopo |
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