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Reefsteamers is a non profit, Section 21 Company. We are affiliated to the Transnet Heritage Foundation (Railway Museum) and are controlled under their auspices.
When Transnet discontinued daily steam operations during 1991, Reefsteamers was established at the old loco shed in Germiston. The main objective is to preserve and rebuild old steam locomotives. We also run special day and weekend trips for private persons and Companies to various destinations in order to fund our activities.
This organization comprises people from all walks of life such as business executives, engineers, accountants 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. We currently have 100 members both local and overseas. Twenty-five people are actively involved in restoration during weekends.
We aim to offer a very competitive, comfortable and efficient service to our passengers as the success of the organisation and consequently the preservation of steam relies heavily on our ability to fund our projects. We believe wholeheartedly that it is our duty to preserve steam to make this pleasure available to our grandchildren.
We welcome any interested persons to join Reefsteamers. One need not necessarily have technical skills to be a working member. There are many opportunities for members to become involved in activities such as the organizing and controlling of the train trips, polishing, fitting, cleaning, advertising or even assisting with general tasks such as administration.
There is definitely a growing demand for steam since this method of traction was phased out years ago. One will often see steam trains featured in advertisements on television, in movies or recently in South African musicians videos. People are yearning for this mode of travel from a bygone era. We at Reefsteamers, offer this privilege. To sustain this endeavour, however, we require a wide range of sponsorships to support the huge tasks of restoration, maintenance, storage and running of steam locomotives.
Many of our current members may never see the completion of some of our projects in their lifetime; but we persevere in the hope that future generations may derive benefit from our efforts.
The main aim of Reefsteamers is based around preservation of steam locomotives. We are a technically focused organisation to preserve and restore locomotives. To fund the organisation and to keep it going we run day trips for public at large and when we have an opportunity we run longer tours for steam enthusiasts to generate revenue to plough it back into the preservation of locomotives and rolling stock.
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