Before I talk about the Cloetes, let me sketch a little background of the area where this drama took place.
In the days of steam, trains ran on a branch line from Aliwal North via Lady Gray to Barkly East. Building the line must have taxed railway engineers as the terrain is mountainous and about 20 km from Lady Grey on the way to Barkly East, they encountered the Karnmelkspruit gorge, a really major obstacle. It was decided to bridge the gorge with a high trestle bridge which would lead to a tunnel through the mountainside. Legend had it that the trestle bridge was brought from Scotland in the 1st World War but that the ship was torpedoed and the bridge lost. It has since been determined that this was not so and that the mundane truth was, the Government of the day simply did not have enough money for the bridge. In the meantime, the tunnel was built and is still there today, if you know where to look.
The engineers then decided on a system of points and reverses – 8 of them – to allow a train to creep down into the gorge and up the other side, by going back and forth on tracks with acceptable gradients. To enable this to take place, the fireman or the guard would hop off the shunting engine and switch points. The process was time consuming but effective and stayed in use from around 1911 until the line was taken out of use, nearly a century later. Main roads in the area were tarred and generally improved only in the seventies and until then, the railway link justified its existence by carrying a fair amount of freight to and from Barkly East and Lady Grey.
Anglers from Lady Grey seeded the spruit with trout and when I worked there, it was a favourite spot for trout fishermen, a bunch of chaps pretty fanatical about their sport anywhere and very much so around there. Trout fishing is really an art for which much skill is required and I only hope that the stream still supports a trout population
This railway line ran through the Cloete farm, also called Karnmelkspruit. The brothers, Gerbrandt, Hotnot (Neil) and Tintie were sitting on their stoep, making a dent in a box of brandy, when they hatched the idea of hijacking the train. They took their .303 rifles down to the line along with the box of booze and sat waiting for the train. They had chosen a spot where the engine would be forced to traverse slowly and when it eventually turned up, they started firing their rifles over the heads of the terrified driver and his stoker, forcing the loco to stop. They then got onto the footplate and started plying the shaking railway chaps with brandy, forcing the driver to show them how to drive the engine. Once the SAR chaps were thoroughly inebriated, the brothers implemented their newly acquired knowledge and started driving the train.
Gerrie himself told me the story of how they drove that train through all the reverses and points without damaging a thing, actually reaching Barkly East unscathed and happy as only really naughty boys can be when up to mischief. Luckily the train was a short goods train and the only lives at risk were their own and those of the driver and stoker. They took turns driving and stoking and probably hopelessly overworked their guardian angels – if they had any.
Gerrie would not elaborate on the furore which their silly action caused or the punishment that was meted out to them but I did hear from others that each brother was fined a total of 8 000 Pounds. I would have loved to have heard the story from the viewpoint of the railwaymen as well. Their input would have neatly tied up what to me has always been an incredible story.
(If this story has piqued your interest in that railway line, go to YOU TUBE and ask for a video called RIDING THE REVERSES – it runs for about 15 minutes and will show you the whole route as seen by a passenger on the train)
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