Steam Locomotives of the South African Railways (vols 1: 1859-1910; and 2: 1910-1955) (inscribed by Judge M T Steyn) (1971, 1972)

This set is interesting for the handwritten dedication to the previous owner by Judge M T Steyn (see image), grandson of President M T Steyn, writing from Onze Rust, the Steyns\' family home. Translated, the dedication reads: \"To my dear friend Andre Bezuidenhout in grateful recognition of the great contribution he has made to keeping our people \'on the rails\'.\"

This two-volume railway treasure remains in constant demand among enthusiasts because of the writer\'s own life history.

He grew up in the first decade of the 20th century in the important railway town of Witbank, in the present Mpumalanga [as did Rohan Vos of Rovos Rail] and, as he writes in the introduction to Vol 2, had personal experience of \"many of the locomotives which others know only from photographs: all the Mallets; the Garratts with the exception of the class GA; the Kitson-Meyer; all the tender locomotives from Class 1 onwards, and all the Tanks. I took my first locomotive photograph way back in 1922, a Class 16C, No 831, at Braamfontein, so that this work is really the culmination of a life-long study of the SAR locomotives\".

He expected that his research and writing for these two volumes would take six months, but it actually took eighteen times as long, although, as he wrote in the introduction to Vol 1, this period represented \"amongst the most interesting years of my life\".

The three-colour laminated dustjackets, not price-clipped (R7.50 each), are lightly rubbed on the front with some slight lamination peeling at the extremities. The black cloth-boards, gilt to spine, are lightly crushed at the foot of the spine but the set is fine overall. There are booksellers\' stickers on the front paste-downs but otherwise the plain endpapers are clean, as are the book\'s 144 + 144 pp of text, illustrations, Vol 2 appendix (which includes corrections to Vol 1) and index, all printed on coated paper.