Boarding commenced at about 6:45pm, a half hour before scheduled departure. I never heard any kind of an announcement. People simply started lining up at the door to the tracks and a couple of railway employees, after checking their tickets, started letting them through. Once we’d located the correct platform, those of us with sleeper reservations had to first go to a large glassed in bulletin board and locate our name, beside which would be our car and room number. Ah… there I am! 8A. Car 8, Coupe A.
The doors and hallways aboard the train cars were quite narrow and while I was able to squeeze my backpack onboard the train and down the hall, I was unable to get into my room without first removing my pack – not as easy as it might sound in the narrow hallway. Once inside, I tossed my pack on the seat and took stock of my new surroundings. Since the hallways run along the side – not the middle – of each car, the compartments are almost as wide as the cars. My compartment was about 8 feet long by 5 feet wide. Along one side ran a large padded bench seat. The back of this seat is larger and at night becomes the main mattress once it’s placed atop the bottom cushion. On the opposite wall was nothing except a small sink in the corner by the window. Although the handles indicated hot and cold water, I doubt there’d been anything flowing but room temperature water for many years. The window was about 2 ½ feet square and was divided into two halves. The top half slid down for fresh air. There was neither screen nor air conditioning.
The tracks were located under the station and it was hot and muggy down there. I fanned myself with my ticket jacket while awaiting departure. 7:15pm came and went. 7:30pm. 7:40pm. 7:45 - :46 - :47 Jeez! What’s going on?! Finally, there were two shrill tweets from a hand held whistle followed shortly thereafter by a noisy jolt as the engineers finally applied power to the big diesel electric engines. I had my window down and as we slowly started to glide out of the station, the wheels beneath me put out a terrible racket. There was this loud squeaking noise that went like this: Weka Weka Weka Weka Weka Weka Weka. Oh, man! I hope I’m not going to have to listen to that all night! As we increased speed, the cadence and pitch changed a bit: Weka Weka Wika Wika Wika Wika Wikka Wikka Wik Wik Wik Wik Wik Wi – into blessed nothing, or at least nothing I could discern. This was much better, especially once the breeze started to flow through my open window. This might not be such a bad trip after all.
About an hour into the trip, I decided to pay a visit to the diner. There are no lounge cars aboard these trains so if you want food, drink or camaraderie, you must go to the dining car. Shosholoza Meyl recently contracted out all of its onboard food services to a local fast food retailer called BJ’s. This would be like having Amtrak hand its food services over to Carl’s Junior or Waffle House. Not quite a Denny’s but more than a McDonalds. Actually, the menu wasn’t all that bad. Of course, there was the expected variety of hamburgers, fried fish and chicken entrees but there were also sandwiches, minute steaks and boerewor sausages along with some tribal foods that I can’t begin to describe. I settled on a curried beef plate and was not disappointed in either the taste of the price. Although not too spicy, it was plenty flavorful and cost only $24.00 ZAR or about $3.50 US. Such a deal!
Thoroughly sated, I returned to my room and read until one of the crew came by offering bedding. For approximately $3.50 US I could have sheets, blankets and two pillows. Why this isn’t included in the train fare is beyond me but I paid the man and within three minutes he’d turned out quite a nice bed for me. Granted, there was no chocolate on the pillow like just a few days earlier aboard The Canadian but it was a well made bed and, best of all, the pillows were made from real down. Though small, they were thick and heavy and vastly superior to your average foam rubber or cotton fill pillow.
The route between Durban and Johannesburg takes this train through some pretty scenic countryside, most notably the Drakensburg Mountains. Unfortunately, it’s traveled under cover of darkness. I fell asleep around 11:00pm, only to be awakened a couple of hours later by a horrific jolt as we pulled out of some poor backwater town unfortunate enough to have its only railroad service arrive and depart in the middle of the night.
I slept through the rest of the night without incident and awoke to sunshine and distant mountains rolling past my window. We were due in Johannesburg in about an hour, so I hastily organized my gear, stowed it, and headed up to the diner for coffee and breakfast.
Either there weren’t many early risers on this train or breakfast at BJ’s wasn’t very popular amongst the riders. With the exception of the staff, I was the only patron in the entire car! The breakfast menu offered four choices, none of which were worthy of endorsement by any cardiologist worth his salt. There was an egg and cheese sandwich, an egg and bacon platter, an egg, bacon, sausage and tomato platter and finally an egg, bacon, tomato and french fries platter. All of these came with a slice of toast. I ordered the one with fries along with an immediate cup of coffee.
With so few people in the diner, I was better able to have a good look at its layout. Seating was buffet style, the tables accommodating four on one side and smaller tables seating one or two across the aisle. Local music blared from speakers located at each end of the car. At the far end, down by the kitchen, a small gathering of staff and friends of the staff looked to be having a party. Nonetheless, service was attentive and my coffee was presented in an attractive cup and saucer adorned with colorful Ndebele style art. The seats were upholstered in a collage of African art styles, much like a patchwork quilt. They were then sealed in plastic. In all, a colorful dining experience that included some very good coffee.
Before long, we were rolling through the suburbs of Johannesburg. Aside from industrial areas and junkyards, the “neighborhood” alongside the tracks included some very large shantytowns where people lived in patchwork structures created mainly from pieces of corrugated steel and scrap wood. There were also lots of single story government built houses that looked more like large children’s playhouses, and finally, as we approached the inner city, we passed a collection of apartment buildings and tenements. Some of these looked acceptable, some did not. A couple of the worst examples had broken windows and crumbling facades yet I could see people standing inside behind the windows. I was reminded vividly of similar scenes in the buildings surrounding the 125th Street station on the Harlem Line heading north out of New York’s Grand Central Station. It was abject poverty at its worst.
Disembarking in the Johannesburg Station, I had to present my ticket to one of the railroad staff before being allowed to proceed through the turnstiles and head upstairs into the main terminal. Definitely save your ticket receipts! The escalator was not working so I trudged up the long concrete stairway and into the heart of Johannesburg’s Park Station. The cavernous central hall was flooded with natural and artificial light and looked far more pleasant than that mausoleum masquerading as a station down in Durban! There were a good variety of restaurants, most of them fast food operations specializing in chicken and burgers but there were also a couple of nicer table service places upstairs that served things like steak, fish and curries. There were also a number of small stores selling everything from fresh meat to office products to luggage. Also on the upper level was a bank and a place that offered internet use for about $6.00 US per hour.
I had five hours before my train was scheduled to depart for Port Elizabeth and wanted to be rid of my forty eight pound pack for awhile. It’s really not that heavy but since it’s designed with over 7000 cc of space, it is bulky, like carrying a medium sized child around on your back all day. Thankfully, there was a baggage storage place at one end of the station that charged the equivalent of about $1.00 US for a day’s storage. Interestingly, the proprietor took great pains to warn me not to venture outside the station. The Park Station is located in a part of downtown Jo’Burg that, according to most guidebooks, is not at all safe. Even the most recent Lonely Planet guidebook, which is designed for backpackers as opposed to your average leisure suit clad Fodor’s tourist on a package holiday, warns against spending any time outside the station, especially if you’re carrying any kind of baggage.
No problem! I spent an hour and a half on a computer with an extremely slow internet connection and a defective keyboard, then headed downstairs to make a couple of bus reservations. Later, I languished over a couple of coffees and a raisin bun at the Leopard Spot restaurant whilst coloring up a few postcards for later mailing.