The Elgin Apple Express

Western Cape Railway Society.
Saturday 15th March 1997.

On Sautrday 15th March, the Western Cape Railway society ran the Elgin Apple Express from Cape Town to Elgin, using 9 Mainline coaches and 2 class 35 diesels nose to nose, numbers 35022 and 35044.

The train was run specially for St. Lukes Hospice and carried many of their volunteers, as well as a pathetic number of bashers. This of course meant that there was no need to hog the front window, as it was always available, and being in South Africa, if you really wanted a good ride, all you had to do was ask the driver for a cab ride, which would not have been a problem. Drivers here tend to call you to the cab if they see you hanging out of the coach anyway, you don't have to ask, this goes for main line passenger services too.

We left Cape Town with a big thrash and lots of good clean exhaust smoke and were soon doing about 120 kph on the 70 limit, as usual. The route took us on the Suburban line through stations where potential passengers put out their hands as if to stop the train and get on. The driver was not at all bothered by this, as he had pedestrians and their animals on the tracks to contend with. There is no such thing as 'Tresspassing on the Railway' here, even in you want to change platforms in the main station, you just jump off the platform and get onto the next one. If the doors on your train close before you board, you just hang onto the guttering and stand on the step until the next station, although the doors don't always close anyway, so you needn't worry.

After passing through Eerste Rivier station, the Overhead wires branch off to the right as the Strand line, and we continued along the freight only line to Caledon. The line takes you through Sir Lowry's Pass which is very steep, and definitely neccesitated 2 class 35s. The engines were up to full thrash and we were reduced to a crawl through the pass. On the other side we stopped next to a road, and dropped off the passengers who were going to a get together at the country club. There was no platform just a road crossing, which the driver conveniently parked across. It was quite fun to watch the mostly elderly passengers falling onto the ballast when they realised the 4 foot drop from the last step. Only one ended up with a broken arm, so no real harm was done. Meanwhile, me and some of the railway society members were organising our cab ride.

The train was eventually moved to Elgin Station, about 15 minutes down the line, with about 6 people in the cab and myself sitting outside on the front of the loco. At Elgin we ran round and then pondered what we should do for the next few hours. It was a bit like getting off the DMU at Penmaenmawr and discovering that there is no ballast train to photograph and the next train is in several hours time. We ended up walking through the apple orchards, which provide the apples that we don't get to eat because they are all sent to places like the UK. The nearest town, Grabouw is about as exciting as Retford, a place where I once got off and missed a class 91 I needed by about 3 seconds... I found a Spar supermarket, amazingly and got a Cadbury's Tempo, some Simba crisps and a can of Fanta Tropical Punch.

The train set was booked to wait at Elgin until it was passed by a freight service, so at 14h30, I was there hoping to get some photo's, it ended up being the highlight of the day, 4 class 35's on a grain train which stopped to pose for 2 minutes before thundering away. Afterwards we returned to the pick up point, and headed for home with lots of very rowdy and very drunk passengers. Luckily the noise died down after a while and we cruised downhill in brilliant sunshine, by the way its summer here ! At Cape Town, the Spoornet staff gathered all the people who had jumped onto the train along the way, and the driver uncoupled and left before half the passengers had even realised they were home.

Everyone seemed quite happy, and I went home to tick off the class 35's which I had needed.
David Settle.

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