Shosholoza Meyl Train

Pardon me boy, is this the Shosholoza Meyl train?

Now we come to one of the highlights of our South African soiree – the Shosholoza Meyl train. Not quite up there with the Trans-Siberian, this is the longest train journey I’ve made. At 27 hours from end to end, and at £30 for the joy of being on the train this long, not only is it the budget alternative to flying, this has to be one of the biggest rail bargains anywhere in the world. Apparently, a sitter costs £7.50 one way, but I really don’t know how anyone could possibly do this and remain comfortable.

At 1230 sharp, our train left the far end of Cape Town station, trundling its way through the suburbs and into the country. Our first stop, Belleville, was unremarkable, and a few hours later, after travelling through some mountainous countryside, we travelled for mile after mile towards Worcester and onwards. Our beds were made up at 6, we ate at around 2030 and had a very relaxed time reading and talking crap until about 2330 when Mrs D hit the sack, and I carried on reading and admiring the starlit view – we rarely see stars in England due to light pollution.

It was a fairly large area in which to sleep – the arrangement is light that of the old slam door compartment trains which ran south of the Thames until recently. You have about three quarters of the entire width the carriage to sleep on, and have a fold down bunk above you. Fortunately, these are only really used when the trains are full, which since we were out of season, they were not. Between the seats is a fold up table, beneath which is a small sink (ours only gave out the meanest of dribbles). There are two toilets per carriage, so you essentially share one with about 8-10 others. The showers and toilets seemed to be given a thorough clean every few hours. British train companies could learn a lot from this. Food from the dining car was no more expensive than outside the train (a burger and chips was about £2.50) and was pretty basic though perfectly fine. It helped that we’d bought lots of bottled water with us and you do tend to get quite thirsty on these trains, even though ours did not feature air conditioning (the premier class train which does the same route is about seven times more expensive, so dream on).

I can’t think of anything negative about this trip, apart from being told that were running on time, when in fact we were an hour later than scheduled. Not a major concern, but we had contacted our taxi, meant to be picking us up at the station, and who had travelled from Pretoria. He became increasingly irate with us for keeping him waiting as he was on a meter and had already picked up a shared fare returning to Pretoria.

It was an interesting journey for its countryside, for the gentle tck-tck, tck-tck of the rails and because there isn’t a better way to travel apart from maybe a cruise ship if time is not a concern (we made time for this one and was definitely worth every hour “lost” to not having flown).

The company slogan is “A Pleasant Experience” and despite my reservations the strapline was spot on. It was and I’d recommend it to anyone who can make the time to do it.


Inside a sleeping compartment