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Articles: Romance of rail

Posted by admin on Tuesday, June 22, 2004 - 03:55 AM

SOUTH AFRICA'S legendary Blue Train has long been popular among the world's locomotive fans as a value-for-money alternative to the Orient Express or Australia's own Ghan.
The state-run Blue Train, servicing the Cape Town-Pretoria route, now has been joined by the privately-owned Pride of Africa of Rovos Rail. The luxury line links some of the continent's top destinations from Cape Town at the tip of Africa to Dar-Es-Salaam in Tanzania. It takes in magnificent scenery ranging from the game reserves of Mpumalanga to the Victoria Falls, from the desert landscapes of Namibia to the lush canefields of KwaZulu-Natal and the Garden Route along the Cape South Coast. The Pride of Africa is owned by Rohan Vos, who fulfilled a childhood dream by running a train for his family. When the venture became increasingly costly, he opened the train to tourists. Four historic locomotives are named after his children, Shaun, Bianca, Tiffany and Brenda. Tiffany is the "darling old lady", built in Glasgow in 1895 and lovingly restored by Vos. Because the locomotives require about 300 litres of water and 75kg of coal for each kilometre, the train is pulled by steam engine only on the last stretch of the three-day journey between Cape Town and Pretoria. Departure from Cape Town is straight from an Agatha Christie novel – a red-carpet welcome with stewards looking after baggage and guests sipping champagne. "We want to avoid stress at all cost," says Vos, who has personally come to greet his guests. "There is good food, good wine and good conversation. "We have neither radio nor television on board – only the panorama of nature." The 12sq m deluxe suite features a double bed, a seating area, a mahogany cupboard, a refrigerator and a bathroom with shower and toilet. "No other train in the world has such large standard coaches," Vos says. The Royal Suites take up half a coach length and even have a large bathtub. The 200m-long train, with 20 coaches, has room for 72 passengers. The state-run Blue Train carries between 74 and 82 passengers. Most tourists start the journey from Cape Town. On a clear day, a trip by cable car to the top of Table Mountain is one of the highlights. A round trip along the Cape Peninsula is also recommended. The southern tip of the Cape is a nature reserve featuring baboon families and springbok. Further into the interior are the wine and fruit farms around Franschoek and Stellenbosch, South Africa's second oldest city, boasting some of the finest Cape Dutch architecture. The wine tradition was brought to the Cape by the French Huguenots. Many of the wine farms in the area offer wine-tasting visits or lunches beneath shady oak trees. Later the train arrives in the Hex River Valley with the hot, dry climate favouring cultivation of strong dessert wines. The dry Karoo high plateau is reached soon after. Our travel brochure tells us this flat landscape was once a lake that became filled with huge masses of volcanic sediment over millions of years. Several ostrich farms still operate in the Karoo. The ostrich-feather fashion boom that lasted until World War I was once a lucrative trade for the ostrich farmers, but today the birds are valued for their low-cholesterol meat. Matjiesfontein lies in the middle of the Karoo. The former train station houses a small museum and both the Pride of Africa and the Blue Train make a stop here. The town was established in 1884 by the English immigrant James Douglas Logan, who bought the land around the railway station. Before long, he had created an oasis in the semi-desert, selling food and drink to the railway passengers passing through. Later, the clever businessman marketed the town's dry and clean air as the ideal spa venue for people suffering from lung disease. The buildings, including the Victorian Lord Milner Hotel with its traditional pub, have been wonderfully restored. For dinner, train manager Pieter Peyper recommends formal dress. All three meals and drinks on board are included in the price – even the whisky at the bar. A day later, the train arrives in Kimberley, the diamond capital of South Africa. The main attraction is the Big Hole, the world's largest man-made crater. At various times, 50,000 fortune seekers used pick and shovel to dig the 400m deep and 500m wide hole. They dug up 2.7 tonnes of diamonds. On the last day of our trip, the train passes through Johannesburg. The mine dumps are a testimony to the once large gold-mining industry in the area. Modern skyscrapers are as much part of the scenery as the poverty-stricken shanty towns. In Centurion, much to the joy of passengers, the old lady Tiffany takes over from the diesel locomotive. It puffs its way along to the beautifully restored Capital Park railway station. Many passengers will continue their journey to the spectacular Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe but others end their trip in South Africa's capital, Pretoria.

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