The lamented loss of South Africa’s long-distance services
As I wrote about in my previous column, I am in Africa trying to discover the state of the railways
As I wrote about in my previous column, I am in Africa trying to discover the state of the railways on the route which Cecil Rhodes wanted to build through the whole of the continent. While the Cape to Cairo line was never completed, long sections were built and I have set out to try to discover what has happened to those lines.
South Africa, as I found, no longer has any long distance trains, a sad fate for what had for decades in the twentieth century been one of the great railways of the world. Accurate information about the state of the local railways even from the wonderful Man at Seat 61, is hard to come by . The internet simply can’t keep up with the vagaries of railway systems that still issue Edmonson tickets and no functioning website. It’s only by being on the spot that one can discover the true situation.
Botswana, like South Africa, cancelled its passenger services during COVID and has not restored them. The main route built at Rhodes’s instigation ran from the capital Gaberone up to Francistown and then across to Bulawayo now in Zimbabwe. It was famously laid at the rate of a mile a day by the Pauling Brothers, his favoured contractors. However, what many of the history books do not tell you is that they had to go back to put down ballast and reinforce the embankments as it had been constructed in such haste. Unfortunately those rails no longer have any passenger trains though a guy who used to live in Francistown said there had been a thriving service across the border to Bulawayo which he had used frequently to visit his family.
It was therefore an overnight bus which took us to Bulawayo where at last there was hope that we might get a ride on a train some 1,000 miles further North than had we been able to take one from Cape Town. At the station, a grand building still well maintained and with a clutch of passenger coaches on the opposite platform a chalked message announced that there was a weekly train on Fridays at 7pm to Victoria Falls. At last.
For complex reasons – see separate piece – we needed to ascertain where the train stopped at all the intermediate stations but the station master did not know the answer even though this was the only service every week from his station. This was an obvious example of how incompetent political cronies are given government jobs, a common African phenomenon. We did, though find out later that this was an all stations service – with countless other stops, too – and consequently three days later, early on Saturday morning me and my travelling companion Liam boarded a train from the ballast heading for Victoria. Falls. It was at 7 40 am, some five hours later than scheduled and consequently we had spent much of the night fretting about whether it was coming.
It was a ramshackle affair running at a maximum of 50 mph and constantly stopping at little halts and stations, or crossing points to wait for the coal trains coming down from the Hangwe mine. Rail had once been the only form of transport for the coal, but now many trucks went down the terrible road to Bulawayo adding to its damaged state as a result
The train arrived at the Victoria Falls station, next to the eponymous hotel, at nearly 7pm, a cool nine hour late. In the absence of a dining car or any hawkers selling food, we were starving but at least we had been on a train ride.
We could have continued our journey on another train which runs from Livingstone in Zambia, just across the fabulous British built bridge over the Zambezi but it did not leave until the Monday which meant we would have missed our key train, the service from Kapiri Mpochi north of Lusaka to Dar es Salaam, Africa’s longest rail service. The Livingstone train would have taken us to Kapiri but only reaching it on Wednesday, a 650km journey that takes two days while our train, also weekly departs on Tuesdays at 2pm.
Now though, at last, it was going to be one train for the 1150 mile journey through to Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. Built with Chinese money in the early 1970s, one of the first projects they funded in Africa, it is primarily for freight but the weekly train service is well used. The vast terminus, by far the little town’s tallest building which from the outside has all the charm and style of Moscow’s KGB headquarters. Inside its spacious concourse was full of people attracted not only by the convenience of the train service but also by its cheapness. We paid just £35 for what was supposed to be a two day trip but in fact normally involves an arrival some time on the Friday rather than the scheduled Thursday 4 pm.
The carriages show all the signs of their veteran status but are kept clean. The windows are hard to open and toilets are hole in the ground style but there is a dining car inevitably dispensing fried chicken and at breakfast beef stew which was surprisingly tasty. The beer too is ice cold and better than our largest. The scenery on the Zambian side is of the same type of bush that has followed us up through Africa
The ride quality though resssembles what therapy passengers on the Stockton and Darlington must have experienced. By the time the train left three hours late and we had eaten a chicken and rice dinner, it was time for bed and that was just as the track seemed to deteriorated. It is difficult to describe how bad it was, made worse by the efforts of the crew to try to make up the lost time. Therefore the train was running at full pelt, around 60 mph on tracks which in the UK would be restricted to 12. In bed, I was thrown up in the air several times and shaken as the rather loose couplings allowed the coaches to smash into each other as the train slowed. The noise was deafening and it was only when the train was at one of its lengthy frequent stops that I drifted off. Fortunately, the next morning the track quality had improved only for it to get even worse during the second night.
The scenery in Zambia consisted mostly of that endless flat bush landscape of small trees interspersed by scrubby grass that stretches seamlessly into the horizon. On the other side of the border, however, when dawn came it revealed a much lusher and hillier terrain which later opened into vast game parks in which I even managed to spot a rhinoceros.
The border took six hours to cross because of the bureaucracy. While exiting Zambia was simple, getting our passports stamped on the other side entailed being taken in the back of an ambulance, the only vehicle available, for a couple of kilometres on a road with all the features of a rocky path up a mountain to pay our $50 in cash – no pounds accepted – for the visa and return to the train. There was a moment when the four of us who needed a visa wondered if this was some sort of scam but it turned out to be legit – or at least semi legit as our requests for receipts met with blank stares.
The only other white guy on the train, a Dutchman, was rather sceptical as to whether I could recommend the trip given the hassles and uncertainties as well as the excess of chicken. In fact I would be happy to tell people to try the adventure, but only If they are able to abandon their nomal creature comforts for a few days. And don’t book a flight on the expectation that it will arrive on time.
Elephant Express and the Bulawayo museum.
Because we had to wait a couple of days to get the train to Victoria Falls, we had the good fortune to drop in on a lodge on the edge of Hangwe National Park operating what must be the only safari on rail. The innovative owner of Imvelo Lodges, Mark Butcher, said that his biggest struggle is getting people to his lodges which happen to be dotted around the main line. So a few years ago he came up with the idea of using the line from Dete, over 50 miles from the lodges. To enable this, he built a special viewing vehicle using two land rover engines capable of carrying 20 people. Just after we hopped on it halfway through its journey, a herd of elephants popped up a couple of hundred yards away. It was, quite genuinely, the Elephant Express!
PS For the real train buffs, the Bulawayo Transport Museum is a treasure trove with a remarkable collection of 25 locomotives, sadly standing in the yard as there is no money to repair them but still in good condition. Theres also coaches, including Rhodes’ personal train which was used to carry his coffin to Bulawayo in 1902 A conversation with the long time curator of the museum, Gordon Murray who sits in a desk piled with railway memoribilia as well as large numbers of First Day Covers he sells for just $2 is worth the visit alone.
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