For Highlands News: Outeniqua Choo-Tjoe

Last week this time I was sitting on the Outeniqua Choo-Tjoe as it shunted out of the Dias Museum Complex in Mossel Bay in billows of steam. The train was pointed at Mossel Bay station, then 2-hrs later, George.

The carriage was creaking and shuddering, an old springbok head was sandblasted on the window and the wood paneling was shiny with varnish. This exhilarating experience – one of Africa's great ones - was from another time and another place, one much more innocent than now.

The shunting sound of the steam engine - her name is Rosie - and the billows of steam meant that this last scheduled-departure, short-haul steam train journey in Africa had begun.

Judging by the reaction, and many accents in the rest of the carriage, trains undoubtedly remain a passion for people all over the planet.

The nostalgic reek of the smoke from the burning coal took me back to a standard 4 camp in the then Transvaal's Magaliesburg area. Ever since then, no matter where I have been in the world, coal smoke has the ability to push my 'happy emotion' buttons. Even chestnuts roasting on braziers in Soho's streets of London can propel me straight home.

The train offers museum-to-museum tours on a scenic, 100-year old line from the Dias Museum in Mossel Bay to the Outeniqua Transport Museum in George. Its route is more or less along the very edge of the Indian Ocean. There are six tours a week in summer, three a week in winter.

What's the relevance of writing about the Outeniqua steam train in an Mpumalanga Highlands newspaper you may ask?

For one the Outeniqua Transport Museum incredibly houses the train in which President Paul Kruger conducted the affairs of the Transvaal Republic in Machadodorp and Waterval Onder at the end of the South African War.  (Allow yourself to imagine what could be achieved if it was back here where it belongs.)

Secondly, someone needs to be taking Spoornet to task about our own, but unused, steam train (it's a treasure!) rusting on its tracks in Waterval-Boven. (Why is it not shunting up and down the historical and immensely popular track between Machadodorp and say Numbi Gate of Kruger, attracting visitors to our world, creating jobs and generating prosperity?) 

Thirdly, Mossel Bay Tourism (www.visitmosselbay.co.za) is a world-class example of what can be done to promote and uplift an area. (Believe me, the Mpumalanga Highlands has all the ingredients to be exactly that... a world-class destination.)

Nevertheless, it was time to sit back and be lulled by the storm-lashed ocean and the rolling carriage while praying that someone would serve some decent railway coffee. Life is bliss... especially as there appeared to be no hurry and no worries in Mossel Bay.