I had the privilege and the misfortune to show my grandchildren the famous Rovos Rail train in the little Northwest town of Swartruggens, of all places. For those who do not know, this luxury train is also known as The Pride of Africa. It's a privately owned train and is regarded as one of the best luxury trains in the world, compared to "The Orient Express". Most people's opinion is that it's the best train in the world. I have friends who have taken a trip on it, and the description they gave, was spectacular.

A few weeks ago, as we approached Swartruggens by car, we saw this very long, stationery train outside the town. We excitedly raced to the town's station to find that only the train’s engine was parked next to the platform, thus leaving most of this beautiful train with it's 26 coaches, outside of the town. The passengers could also therefore not disembark onto the platform and they were completely unaware of what I experienced.

We parked our car and took my grand children to try and see the train from up close. Firstly we had to walk carefully sidestepping the large amount of waste and rubble and cracks in the platform with weeds growing out of it. I believe that this was once a beautiful ornate train station.

I then got to speak to the train driver who was waiting to be relieved by a new team. He told me that we were lucky to see the train stationery, as the train left Pretoria 8 hours late and this stop, which normally only lasts a few minutes, is also our luck, as he was waiting for the relief team for more than 45 minutes already. He told me that he had cell phone contact with them and that they are not far away. The Rovos Rail was full and was taking the tourists on a luxury holiday to the Victoria Falls via Botswana. So now the tourists were 9 hours late.

After a while a car pulled up on the “station” with 3 people in it. When the front passenger, a woman who happened to be one of the new train drivers, got out of the car, her take-away food wrappings just fell off her lap to the ground. She just stepped over it and lazily dragged her feet to the car boot, stretching and yawning, to slip a Transnet apron over her head. This indicated to us that she was a driver. The three of them stood chatting and laughing for a while and then made their way through the rubble onto the platform to climb into the driver’s compartment. Two people got into the train and the third person just stood talking to them, drinking from a cold drink can. When this person finished his cold drink, he just threw the empty can onto the railroad tracks.

And finally after another 10 minutes of talking on cell phones and chatting, The Pride of Africa slowly and gracefully pulled away on her luxury journey, with a lot of passengers paying a small fortune for their trip. There were no signals like in the old days of rail travel. Only cell phone contact to get the all clear for the journey’s next stretch!

The passengers had no clue why they did not stop next to the station platform and were completely unaware of what we saw during their stop in Swartruggens. Every coach which glided passed us when the train pulled off, were spotless and shiny with beautifully sign-written wording - ROVOS RAIL – The Pride of Africa!!!