Luxury Train Africa Through The Development Of The Region

By Author: Tracy Narvaez
Total Articles: 348
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Luxury train Africa style is different to that which takes place on other continents. Every continent imposes its own style on the ways that people get about. Not only the geological features but also the peoples and their cultures rub off on the railway tradition of a country.

Wheels were very rare, if even unknown when the colonial powers entered Africa in a big way. Goods were transported on legs. In many ways legs are superior to wheels when the terrain is rough. However, Europeans know of the economic advantages of wheels and set about smoothing out the ground so that wheels could be used to transport goods and people in quick time.

In South Africa there are few rivers that are navigable for more than a few kilometers. A long mountainous spine runs up the eastern site of the country making the hinterland difficult to access from the wet eastern side. A barrier of deserts protected the heart of the country from the west. When gold was discovered in large quantities near the center early colonists began the enormous engineering challenge of building smooth platforms across rough country.

To get from ports ...
... to remote hinterlands where resources like gold and diamonds had been discovered engineers had to construct incredibly long, smooth excavations, lay down secure beds of gravel with wooden sleepers at close intervals on them and then nail steels rails securely so that heavy rolling stock could run along them without being derailed. To make their task even more challenging rough terrain had to be traversed. Valleys and mountains were crossed, not to speak of rivers, swamps and what must have seemed like endless plains.

In South Africa a route had to be constructed from the port of Durban to Johannesburg where mines had already been established hundreds of kilometers away. At first ox wagons transported engineering supplies across the Drakensberg mountains that rear jagged peaks thousands of feet above sea level. A railway line had to follow tortuous contours up the sides of mountain slopes, following gradients the were sufficiently easy for steam engines to traverse whilst hauling heavy loads.

From Cape Town in the south the route had to proceed northwards over empty deserts. Though flat, the Great Karroo is expansive and dry. The colonial engineers that laid tracks on routes that are still being used two hundred years later had no heavy equipment, no pay loaders or graders or mechanical horses, yet the excellence of their works stands as testimony to their skills. They may be seen as symbols of what European colonists achieved in developing the economy of a country that is now one of the richest on the continent.

In addition to the main routes constructed for military and trade purposes there were many shorter lines constructed between small towns. In some cases they were private enterprises built to profit from the transportation of agricultural produce to markets. The steel rails lie on he ground still in many parts of the country partially overgrown by weeds and with the buildings that once served to accommodate staff and goods crumbling away. It seems that there is still a belief in their economic worth that prevents them from being abandoned altogether.

In Capital Park, Pretoria there is a railway museum the preserves many of the artifacts that were typical of luxury train Africa in its early days. From this museum tourists can still travel in carefully restored period carriages to enjoy something of the style and the adventure of colonial days. These are luxury trains with observation cars. From them one can observe what has become of the efforts of colonial builders and engineers.

Find a brief summary of the advantages of opting for luxury train Africa travel and download the latest Rovos brochures from our website, today.