It sounds a lovely idea getting Transnet to run more lines and open up train tourism again (https://www.travelnews.co.za/article/all-aboard-tourism-train). However, I fear there is too much infrastructure to fix, including stations and their facilities.
I organised a small group of 10 croquet players to travel the Alan Paton line a few years ago out of Ixopo. Like myself, Alan Paton’s sons, David and Jonathan had been croquet players, so I felt we had to ride this train.
First, we couldn’t find the ‘station’. There was no station. The operator ran operations from a siding.
When the train arrived at the famous Carisbrooke Station where the opening scene of ‘Cry the Beloved Country’ happens, there was a building but it had been vandalised and its new toilets gone. The operator said they had hoped to build a huge museum to Alan Paton with a glass side to it, overlooking the lovely view.
At Ixopo siding, after the 10km trip, they laid on a braai to eat with our fingers. The local train enthusiasts had opened a pizza restaurant for local people to run but it had turned into a shebeen and annoyed the neighbours with noise at all hours. We learned that one day, having run up a huge electricity/water account, they disappeared with everything including the pizza oven.
If such a historically interesting person, who helped put the apartheid story on the map, has his peaceful area of KZN fail so miserably, what hope is there? Alan Paton had actually lived in Ixopo and we drove past his house.
Jo Meintjes, JO MEINTJES TRAVEL
