|
By Gerald
Buttigieg - December 2009
I saw Richard Lewis's request for info and a picture of the miniature train that ran on Durban's Beachfront. Here is a picture of that train from the family photo album. The picture was taken by my late father (with his Kodak Brownie box camera) as you can see in January 1949. That is my sister and I sitting behind the driver.
Picture courtesy Gerald Buttigieg. |
The miniature train that once ran on Durban's beachfront..
<== Click picture to view enlargement, |
We had only arrived in Durban as immigrants some 6 months previously. The train wheel configuration looks like a 4-8-0 but I do not know if it was built as a replica of a particular make. All I remember is that it was down towards the Snake Park as Richard describes. In the picture, not clear, there are cars parked diagonally right up to the line so the train must have run on a type of pavement area. In the picture, the background appears to be a high wall. Note the paddle sticking up. This would have been on the seaward side. The family left Durban later in 1949 and moved away. On our return in 1954, if I remember correctly, the train was no longer there.
Picture courtesy Gerald Buttigieg. |
The paddle steamer that once gave rides on Durban's beachfront.
<== Click picture to view enlargement, |
The second photo is of the Paddle Steamer that used to operate on what was then the Beachfront Paddling Ponds. Again my sister and I are on board. I remember the paddling ponds being sand bottomed. The paddle steamer was coal fired as you can see the smoke coming from the funnel. Obviously there was no restriction to swimming with the paddle steamer going round. The hotels in the background are the Beach Hotel, the Edward and I cannot remember the name of the one next to the Edward. I know it was demolished.
In the photo are the beach seating shelters that were all over the beach front with their distinctive arched roofs made of hardwood slats. There were also the open tiled roof structures dotted about . Another beachfront "decoration" were the tall masts that were erected along the Marine Parade one of which you can see. The masts had a kind of "basket" at the top and the masts were lit up at night with neon light tubing.
I remember the "baskets" had parallel rows of neon tubing. I seem to remember that one of the masts had a big clock at the top so that you could see the time from the beaches. This is vague in my memory but I am sure it existed somewhere along the beach. The paddling ponds were well below street level and between them was a walkway which you can see which stretched from West Street right through past the Rachel Finlayson Beach Baths.
Again, by 1954, the steamer had also gone. The revamping of the paddling ponds for the first time took place in the mid/late 1950s, with these paddling ponds being replaced by a shallow circular baby splashing pond, and a much larger oblong main paddling pond with marble fountains and a slide at one end. The baby pool was adjacent to the old Model Dairy Building. These "new" paddling ponds have also since been demolished and changed.
ADDED February 9, 2010.
Reader Wade Kidwell was kind enough to send in more postcards from his collection including the one, below left, of the train and the other of the more modern locomotive which succeded it.
|
