Image :
dir =africa/ page =index bytes, pixels
Date : , catalogued 28 Aug 2000
Photographer : Stewart Hughes
Medium : digital transmission
Description : Stewart writes:
This is the South African Blue Train pulling out of
Matjiesfontein, 174 miles north of Cape Town to cross the Karoo
on the way to Johannesburg in January 1992. It takes 24
hours. We took the train a few days later. It stops at
Matjiesfontein for an hour to let the passengers get drunk,
prior to their on-train dinner, at the splendid bar of the Lord
Milner Hotel, virtually the only building in Matjiesfontein. We
stayed there the night and had a 9 course colonial style dinner
served by waiters in white gloves!! Pate, soup, fish, eggs
mornay, roast Karoo lamb with vegies, choice of sweets from the
trolley, cheese platter, tea and coffee and candied peel! We
took a very short trip around the village in an old London
double decker bus! The Blue Train is 17 carriages long and
carries only 92 paying passengers. The suites, which cost $1,260
back in 1992 have a living room, bedroom and bathroom complete
with a bath! I have always fancied the idea of having a bath on
a moving train. Unfortunately we could not afford a suite!!!