Review of my Great South African Rail Journey
26th to 30th May 1997

My journey began on Monday morning at 9am, stuck in traffic, on my way to Cape Town station, even in this part of the world we get the usual morning rush hour jams... I was lucky to arrive at the station at 9h10, to see the Trans Karoo with its 18 coaches, a motorail vehicle and a steam boiler vehicle all behind 2 class 6E, 3340hp electric loco's, in the new Spoornet Blue livery with white numbers and logo, numbers E1177 and E1178. The train left on time at 9h20 as usual and slowly started what was to be a long journey North, to Pretoria. We were on time for a while, when the inevitable signal failure caused a long delay, making the train eventually 4 hours late. The train trundled at the usual slow pace through the barren Karoo bush, stopping at the odd station, to pick up a handful of passengers, although it was quite busy on board. The section for the class 6E's is from Cape Town to Beaufort West, and passes and includes interesting stations such as Matjiesfontein,
Leeu Gamka and De Doorns.

Arrival at Beaufort West was at 23h15, and I braved the cold, near freezing temperatues to run down the platform and see the 6E's replaced by, to my surprise, a single class 7E, E7008, in the old style 'Blue Train' South African Railways livery. The reason for the loco change is that the power in the wires changes from 3kv DC, to 25kv AC. The single loco seemed to be ample as we appeared to be travelling faster than when hauled by the 6E's. As most of the passengers were sleeping in their compartments, which have 4 beds for first class and 6 beds in 2nd, the 3rd class passengers who were in open-plan day coaches without beds, tried to keep warm. I didn't sleep much during the next 3 or so hours as I waited excitedly in anticipation of our next form of haulage, from De Aar to Kimberley, the home of De Beers Diamonds, and the Big Hole.

Out on the Platform at De Aar, I shivered as E7008 moved away with its crew happy to be heading to a warm bed, but the sound of 2 class 34 diesels being released from the well-lit yard, made me shiver with excitement, not cold. Out of the mist emerged 34907 and 34710 in the old South African Railways Maroon and Gold Stripe livery, they idled up to the platform and paused before a burst of power as they coupled to the train. I hung out of the front guard's van window for as long as I could bare the biting wind, appreciating every second of the combined 5500hp music. I reluctantly returned to my cosy compartment walking through the cold 3rd class coaches. I tried to sleep but knew that I had to be up early for the next loco change at Kimberley, I had already disturbed the 3 British Students in my compartment throughout the night.

2 class 5E1 locomotives were placed at the front of our train from Kimberley, numbers E 1025 and E 1026, these being slightly lower in power, and dating from 1963 to 1969. Breakfast on board in the restaurant car was 'Full English' exept South African boerewors was an interesting replacement for the usual pork bangers. The cost was a mere R15, about 2 pounds. The mostly Afrikaans' speaking staff were very friendly and the service was excellent. The extra daytime travel due to our late running allowed me to view and photograph many freight trains, hauled by class 5E's and 10E's, carrying all types of mixed freight. The best part of all was having a shower on board, I was fresh and ready to hit Johannesburg when we arrived at 14h30 on the 27th. I had a few hours to look around the city and was a little dissappointed to find the transport museum nearly closed as it is moving to Knysna.

The next journey was to be a little shorter than the 30 hours of the previous trek, and was the Trans Natal from Johannesburg to Durban on the East coast, the surfing capital of SA. I was lucky to find a nice guy waiting for the same train and we decided to stick together as we had both not travelled on the service before. It's amazing how quickly you make friends when you find yourself alone in a strange african station. Class 5E1's number E1127 and E1091 arrived to haul the train for the full distance, and we left at 18h30, in a train with no heating, due to a broken steam pipe which the staff did not report. Arrival at Durban was after an interesting early morning ride through the jungle-like vegetation downhill into the city, we pulled in at 8h25 on the 28th. After complaining to a very sympathetic operations manager at Durban, I had a look around and was taken on a tour of the carriage sidings by one of the Spoornet staff, which was nice as it had started raining that afternoon.

My 3rd journey was the Trans-Oranje, Wednesdays only Durban to Cape Town, due to arrive in the Mother City on Friday morning at 6. Luckily I was only going to Bloemfontein in the Free State. The journey was split, 17h30 Durban to Kroonstad behind class 5E1's No E905, 906 and 907, and then 6h15 from Kroonstad to Bloemfontein behind class 6E1's No's E1363 and E1364. I was up at 6 out on the platform as usual, to see the loco change. My sleeping companions on this train were a normal sort of bloke, and a Sangoma... In other words a Witchdoctor, who was on his way to Cape Town so as you can imagine, the conversation was interesting to say the least. Arrival at Bloemfontein was at 9h30 on the 29th, and I watched sadly as the Trans Oranje left, behind 34096, on its way to Kimberley. I was allowed by the depot manager to enjoy an open-day style walk about of Bloemfontein depot, which was loaded with class 34, 35 and 36 diesels, and a few steam locos's, which are still in service. There were also 33 dead steam loco's and 57 electrics awaiting their fate behind in the yard.

The trans Oranje had been 17 coaches long and was hauled by a single class 34 from Bloemfontein so I was not expecting a double header on my next train: The Diamond Express, which is the 17h00 Bloemfontein to Pretoria service via Kimberley, which was only 11 coaches. I was there on a good day, and to my delight, 34087 and 34094 were released from the depot to do the honours, as we were departing in the daylight, I decided to sit up front in 3rd class, and had a coach to myself. 34094 was obviously in need of a service, and gave an amazing amount of clag and lots of sparks as we roared through the open countryside into the night. The line to Kimberley is very remote and is protected with old style tokens, which are caught by the driver along the route. It was a shame to jump off at Kimberley, as I was to begin my final journey, but there were still the 2 class 34/9's to De Aar to look forward to. The southbound Trans Karoo was on time, and left for Cape Town at 21h10 behind spoornet blue liveried 34924 and 34925, until De Aar. As usual I waited up until we arrived for the loco change, and watched as 7E's, E7066 and E7088 joined for the section to Beaufort West.

Beaufort West to Cape Town behind 6E's E1186 and E1225, brought the Trans Karoo into the Western Cape, and into the sunshine on the 30th of May. The weather was great as the train passed through the wine farms, and the people all along the way waved as usual, the Trans Karoo is known by all the people along its route. Arriving in Cape Town was a real relief, I was home and couldn't wait to get sleep, but the journey was really wonderful and worthwhile. I would recommend it to any visitor to South Africa, the trains are well run, comfortable and very very affordable if you are using pounds, 1st class from Cape Town to Johannesburg is R277, less than 40 pounds.

David Settle.

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