March 21, 2010
Port Elizabeth - Capetown
Shosholoza Meyl Premiere Classe
Car 4 Compartment D
8:45am – 9:20am +1

"Shosholoza Meyl" is the name of the division within the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (PRASA) that runs all of the passenger rail services in the country. It operates scheduled passenger services between major South African cities featuring Economy Class seating as well as First and Second Class sleeper compartments.

In addition to its normally scheduled passenger operations, Shosholoza Meyl also operate another class of service known as Premier Classe. This is an all First Class train providing a higher level of comfort and amenities than one would receive aboard the everyday trains. Premier Classe is Shosholoza Meyl’s answer to South Africa’s famous Blue Train, and while it is nowhere near as luxurious or by extension expensive, the service and facilities are much, much nicer than those found on the normal trains.

Starting last year, Premier Classe service was initiated between Port Elizabeth and Cape Town. Having traveled by bus between these two cities, I know the land to be amongst the most picturesque to be found in all of the country. Indeed, I have often looked at maps of South Africa in years past and wished that there were rail service between these two cities. Now there is. The service departs Cape Town on Friday afternoon, arriving in Port Elizabeth the following afternoon. The return journey departs Port Elizabeth Sunday morning at 8:45am, arriving in Cape Town twenty-five hours later at 9:20am.


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Although I was dropped off a little more than an hour before our scheduled departure time of 8:45am, I was surprised to find that a large number of passengers had already arrived and were presently enjoying complimentary coffee, juice and muffins in the “Lounge”. I use quotation marks here because the Port Elizabeth Railway Station is being refurbished and the room that was serving as a “lounge” looked more like a baggage storage room with chairs and tables than a proper First Class lounge.



Port Elizabeth Railroad Station


After checking in with a uniformed representative operating from a make shift desk, I was handed a boarding card while my back pack was tagged and taken away to be later delivered to my compartment. I headed over to the refreshment table for a cup of coffee and then wandered outside to have a look at the refurbishment effort. The front of the station was half covered in scaffolding, but the one half that wasn’t looked very nice. It’s good to see that an effort is being made to spruce up this grand old building, and hopefully with its rebirth will come improved long distance rail service to the region.

Moving back into the station and out onto the platform, I was impressed by the variety of colorful murals depicting the history and settlement of Alcoa Bay, now renamed as Nelson Mandela Bay. Our train made its first appearance at about 8:15am, backing slowly into the station along platform 4. All of the cars as well as the engine were painted a medium shade of purple, offset by flat black roofs. Painted in gold along the side of each car was the title “Premier Classe”. Once the cars had rolled to a stop along the platform, a team of window cleaners moved in, scrubbing and wiping down all of the windows for the lounge and dining cars. From my perspective, this was a very good sign. A proper railroad operation should pay attention to details like clean windows. After all, enjoying the scenery along the way is a major part of what makes rail travel such an attractive form of travel.

Once the train had been backed into the station, we were all welcome to board. I had been assigned Compartment D in Car 4 and had no problem finding my car since it had come to a stop right in front of me. Another good sign.



Boarding Premier Classe service to Cape Town


My compartment, though no larger than a similar compartment on the regular passenger train service, had undergone a number of modifications that made it substantially nicer. The walls had been re-paneled with rich brown native wood, the couch had been reupholstered in similarly attractive fabric and the window now featured curtains and a solid wooden pull down shade. Where the upper bunk used to be was now a wooden cabinet and shelf fixture. Stacked on the shelf were two thick, fluffy towels, a terry cloth robe and a pair of sandals for use when heading into the shower. Complimentary bottled water along with shampoo and body wash had also been supplied. Totally satisfied with my accommodations, I took a couple of pictures and headed out to inspect the rest of the train.



Compartment aboard Premier Classe service


At the end of my sleeper car was a toilet and a shower. Conveniently located the next car up from mine was one of three bar/lounges on this train. Continuing on toward the front of the train, I passed through a dining car, then a kitchen car, then another dining/lounge car followed by more sleeper cars. I took pictures of them all except the sleepers. It’s worth noting here that when it comes to taking pictures of the inside of railroad cars, the best time to do so is when the train isn’t moving.



Lounge Car



Lounge Car



Lounge Car


Soon enough we were moving, rolling slowly out of Port Elizabeth past the usual collection of inner city detritus – old abandoned buildings, some burnt out railroad cars and plenty of improperly disposed of garbage.

Shortly after departure a steward came through each car requesting that all passengers meet in the lounge car for welcome cocktails, snacks and information about the journey ahead. I arrived in the lounge to find each table set with a plate of mixed nuts, potato chips and biltong jerky.

Lounge attendants served Champagne or orange juice, after which a selection of sandwiches and muffins were served. Soon, the on-board train director arrived, introduced himself and his staff and then explained the meal times as well as lounge car locations and operation. Smokers must have been thrilled to hear that one of the lounge cars was a dedicated smoking car, located at the very rear of the train.

Soon we adopted a north-northwesterly heading away from the coast and the land began to change from thick coastal bushveld to broad expanses of sparsely-vegetated plains. One interesting feature of this land was the large number of big, prickly pear cactus. These were much larger than the cacti of the same name that I’d seen throughout the western U.S.. A man sitting next to me explained that the walnut sized fruit growing off the cactus paddles was edible and quite tasty. Hmm…

Luncheon was served at 12:15pm. Interestingly, rather than use a PA, the call to lunch came via car attendants and stewards making the rounds through each car. Earlier, the dining car steward had come through and assigned us tables to be used for the entire journey. I was assigned table #9 and arrived to find a table beautifully set with three forks, three knives and a spoon. Also set was a bread plate along with glasses for wine and water.



Dining Room Table Setting

Soon my seatmate arrived and we made introductions. His name was Paul, a Brit travelling through South Africa with his wife and two children. They were not with him on this train ride because they preferred to stay back in Durban. Now that may sound a bit odd but consider that Paul was a rail fan who had flown from Durban to Cape Town, ridden this train from Cape Town to Port Elizabeth two days earlier and now had turned right around and was riding it back to Cape Town. Although this made perfect sense to me (Indeed, I found myself wishing that I had had the foresight to book a round trip out of Cape Town as well), Paul’s wife and children did not share his enthusiasm for train travel, especially not when it came to riding trains for the sheer enjoyment of riding them.

As you might imagine, we got along well as table mates. Interestingly however, Paul’s passion for the rails did not extend beyond South Africa. Oh sure, he was conversant about other trains but the only ones he had any interest in travelling upon were South African along with a couple of Namibian trains.

Luncheon began with a presentation of smoked salmon and cream cheese. This is one of my favorite food combinations, be it on a bagel with red onions and capers or by itself on a train. Unfortunately there were no seconds available. I know. I asked. Next up was a veal schnitzel accented with a flavorful mustard sauce and served with potatoes and veggies. The veal was served individually from a large serving tray, after which our waitress then dished out potatoes and vegetables from separate serving trays. The veal was tasty though unremarkable, but that corn! Man! That was really good corn!!



Salmon & Cream Cheese Starter


Dessert was a delicious tiramisu cake enhanced by a berry coulis and a cup of coffee. I’ve yet to meet a tiramisu that I didn’t want to meet again someday. In all, a very nice luncheon.



Tiramisu Dessert


At about four in the afternoon, we entered the spectacular Toorwaterpoort Gorge. The name translates to “Magic Water” and it was explained by one of the train stewards that the Traka River had carved this spectacular ravine through the 3000 foot high Swartberg mountain range over many millions of years. The scenery was by far the most dramatic of the trip and as I opened the window in my compartment to get a better picture of the gorge, I noticed that the river was a lot closer than it looked – in some places only a few feet below the track. I later read that the river is prone to occasional flash-floods, some of which have been quite destructive and costly. One of them closed the rail line through this gorge for over two years. You could clearly see where the track had been newly reinforced in places with concrete bulwarks. Hopefully those will be enough to withstand the next flood.



Toorwaterpoort Gorge



Toorwaterpoort Gorge



Toorwaterpoort Gorge


About halfway through the gorge, I noticed that we had slowed considerably despite the track being fairly straight and level. An announcement was soon made over the PA advising us that mechanical problems in one of the engines had resulted in a severe reduction of power but that we’d have no problem traveling slowly into Oudtshoorn where repairs could be affected. Given the beautiful scenery, I don’t imagine anyone had any complaints.



Beautiful South African Scenery


Ultimately however, the delay turned out to be four hours, thus depriving us of a daylight passage down the Montagu Pass through the Outeniqua mountains. I had read that the views of the surrounding mountains and valleys are said to be quite stunning on this portion of the trip, so I reckon I’ll have to do like Paul and come back and ride this train again. This was Paul’s fourth trip.

Dinner was called at 7:00pm. Here’s what was served:



Dinner Menu ~ Premiere Classe Service


DINNER

Cream of Vegetable Soup
A rich vegetable soup served with fresh cream

Fisherman’s Catch
Deep fried line fish served with a tangy tartar sauce

Roast Leg of Lamb
Served with apricot and mint jelly
Roast potatoes and a medley of seasonal vegetables

Nougat and Chocolate Parfait
Served with either fresh cream or ice cream

Cheese Board
Selection of South African cheese and biscuits
Served with preserved figs

Tea or Coffee


One of life’s great pleasures is dining aboard a train. This is especially true at dinner as you savor fine food and drink while watching the warm glow of the sun as it sets over countryside passing slowly by the your window.



Evening Sky to Accompany Dinner


The waiters and waitresses did an excellent job throughout the meal, graciously serving each course and refilling drinks as needed. It should be noted here that the rail fare was inclusive of all meals, but did not include alcohol. Still, the price for drinks was quite reasonable. Over the course of the trip I downed a number of cold Windhoek Lagers at the U.S. Dollar equivalent of just $1.90 a bottle. An after dinner glass of port cost me just 10 Rand, or about $1.35 USD.



The Lounge Car Bar



The Lounge Car Bar List



The Lounge Car Bar Seating



The lounge car was a good place to hang out. I met two different couples from England and we enjoyed swapping travel stories and drinking beer off and on throughout the journey. Interestingly, I didn’t meet any South Africans during the trip. It’s not that they weren’t riding the train but rather that almost all of them chose to speak Afrikaans. We’re talking white South Africans here, most of them being in their 60s and 70s. The only black South Africans aboard this train were employed by the railroad.

Honestly, I wasn’t quite sure what to make of these old white men who’d spent the first forty or fifty years of their lives living as the favored few during South Africa’s period of apartheid. After having been inculcated in apartheid over so many years, how likely is it that such a mindset truly goes away? Did any of these guys actively support or enforce apartheid? Or did some of them just passively condone it through inaction? Do they truly appreciate the gross injustice of apartheid or are they simply resigned to the new South Africa as changing times? Right or wrong, I couldn’t help but be a bit leery of them, not that it mattered one way or the other since the only language they chose to speak was Afrikaans. In most cases, their interactions with the train staff, many of whom were black or of mixed race, seemed polite but with surprisingly little eye contact. Hmm…

At about 10:30pm I called it a night and returned to my compartment. The bed had already been made up with sheets and a duvet. In the classic manner, the sheet had been folded back and a chocolate mint placed on the pillow. The sheets were crisp and cool. I read for about an hour and then slept comfortably through the night .



Bedtime on South African Rails


I awoke the next morning to a knock on the door at 7:30am. Ahh, my wake up call. I put on my robe and padded down to the shower room which amazingly was unoccupied. The tracks were fairly rough through here, causing the train to rock and sway while causing me to bounce off the walls of the shower. The water pressure was good though and when I presented myself in the dining car a half hour later, I felt like a new man.

My tablemate Paul must have eaten before me, so I had a table to myself as I tucked into a full breakfast of juice, yogurt, perfectly fried eggs, sausage, potatoes, tomato, toast, coffee. Such a life!

By the time we pulled into the town of Worcester, we were running about three and a half hours late. I had no complaints but at least two passengers had airline connections out of Cape Town. The train staff were working towards having them met at an outlying station in one of Cape Town’s suburbs and then driven from there out to the airport. It did not help their cause that we had to switch engines in Worcester because the track is electrified the rest of the way into Cape Town. The switch took about half an hour. Cape Town was just three hours away at this point.



Shantytown outside Cape Town

By the time we finally did pull into Cape Town’s cavernous Central Station, it was 1:30pm. I thanked my car attendant and the lounge car staff who were waiting near the door as I disembarked. Trolleys were available for the long walk into the station proper but with my backpack and day pack I was making better time without one. A nice air-conditioned lounge was available for those awaiting pick-up. I spent a good hour there before heading over to the InterCape Bus office to check-in for my bus to Upington. As with Durban, the bus station is attached to the train station, so I didn’t have far to go.

I thoroughly enjoyed my trip aboard Shosholoza Meyl’s Premier Classe train. The cars were comfortable and well appointed, the food quite nice and the staff unfailingly polite and attendant. Considering that I only paid about $200.00 for this trip, I would say that it is one of the best travel values in all of South Africa. If you should find yourself one day traveling to South Africa and want to experience the fun and even luxury of train travel without paying a huge price, check out Shosholoza’s Premier Class. Service is offered between on four different routes. Here’s a link to the website.


THE FOLLOWING WEEK

It should be noted that I’m about nine days off the pace with regard to keeping up on this report. At present I am in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia. It’s a hot night here and I am sweating it out over the keyboard accompanied by a six pack, a bag of roast peanuts and an air conditioner. The problem persists that while this trip report is primarily about getting there, I’m busy enough having a good time being there that I’ve just not put in enough regular work to keep current. As a result, it’s all I can do to keep up with writing about getting there, much less being there. I get to it when I can… a slow night, a long hot afternoon… but even then it’s easy to get behind. I’d ask your forgiveness but what do you care? You’ll get to read the whole lot of it in May, when it’s done.

On the topic of reports that focus more about being there, I only wish that on some of them the title would be more specific. For example, you’ll get people who submit a trip report with a title like First Class to Africa on BA!!! and then they’ll describe their entire International First Class flight with something akin to “I loved the suite! So large and comfortable. And the food… I really enjoyed my Chicken Divan dinner and the IFE was pretty good, too. After the movie, I slept for about five hours. When we landed in Cape Town, I was feeling fresh and ready to go.” Title notwithstanding, that’s all you’ll get about the flight. The majority of their writing is about what they did, where they stayed and what they ate at their destination.

I would imagine that only a few of FlyerTalk’s 100000+ members truly care to read a detailed report about flying somewhere in First Class, much less any class. That would of course include you, who are still reading this after 20,000 words worth of writing. The Travel & Leisure crowd sign off on my reports after the first thousand words or so. The airliners.net crowd is generally too young to relate to my style of writing. Indeed, my reports might generate more interest (not that they don’t do pretty well anyway) if I were to write them in short, easy to read installments. I’ve been down that road before though, and it’s not for me. As a reader I prefer to have the entire story right there in front of me and as a writer, that’s the way I’m most comfortable doing it.

Only at FlyerTalk can I publish reports of this length to an audience that actually appreciates them. Readers of magazines like Airliners or Airways might also enjoy this stuff, but the problem is my reports are too damned long for most magazines. So – enjoy them here at FlyerTalk and if you want more, here’s a link to everything I’ve published at FlyerTalk – over six hundred and fifty thousand words and one thousand pages worth.

Alright now, getting back to catching up on this report, thankfully I have a good memory for detail aided by the occasional notes I take to later refer to when writing the report. I can easily expound off any of those notes, much like referring to queues for a speech. I’ve got all the subject matter well remembered in my head, but it’s nice to have the queues for a sense of order.

As to what I did during that week after my train journey, I took a bus 550 miles up to Upington, a small city located on the Orange River about 100 miles south of the Namibian border. I first visited Upington back in 2004 when I took a train there from Namibia. I spent one night and most of the next day in Upington while awaiting a bus to Capetown. I liked what I saw then and decided to come back now. While in Upington, I visited Augrabies Falls (The 6th largest waterfall in the world) and took a sunset boat ride on the Orange River. And, I spent a good bit of time just wandering about the town enjoying a casual lunch, a museum, watching some local kids play cricket, drinking beer and telling tall tales with fellow guests at my accommodations, etc. I probably could have done more but it’s not important to me to see and do every “must see and do” place or event. Just hanging out and living the Upington life for a few days is fine by me. The only downside to all this was when a gust of wind lifted my filmcard off a riverside table and deposited it in the river. I lost all of my shots of the Northern Cape. On the plus side, I now have a new and improved film card, but still... Here’s a couple shots of the bus ride up and my guest house:



My Upstairs Bus Seat to Upington



My Guest House Balcony



The view across the Orange River