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My father work on C&W repairs on the Rhodesian Railways, and so we lived in a railway house at a suburb called Westgate, opposite the shunt yard in Bulawayo. At night I would watch the sparks from the shunting at the Westgate shunt. There were some very good displays of sparks from the older loco's, as the spark arresters were not very good, and they had a wheel slip when picking up a heavy load, or the track was a wet or a bit oiled from drips off the loco. I would spend a lot of time watching and get into trouble for not being in bed as it was a school day the next day. I was in trouble so often that Dad put a board up outside the window as I was still watching as late as 23:00 on school days. No wonder I did so badly in my first 2 years at school.
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The Old Git, Syd
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