The Blue Train Still Has Its Sparkle

On the two-night journey from Cape Town to Pretoria, time is one of many luxuries you can enjoy aboard the Blue Train. Sink into a wing-back chair with a glass of sparkling wine and watch the world go by.

- Martinette Louw

It’s a misty Saturday in Cape Town and the winter sun is setting in a pink haze as the Blue Train leaves the suburbs and makes its way past the granite domes of Paarl. I’m sitting in the observation car – the rearmost carriage, with big windows on three sides – and I watch as the silhouette of the Taal Monument flashes past.

Only a handful of the roughly 30 passengers on board for the two-night, 1 660 km journey from Cape Town to Pretoria are seated here, looking out at the orchards and vineyards of the Boland. The rest are getting dressed up for tonight’s four-course meal. Earlier I overheard a woman whisper: “Do we really have to wear ball gowns?”

The ice in my glass clinks softly with the sway of the train. The sound mixes with the click-clack of the wheels, the Texan twang of the American couple next to me, and the long vowels of a group of Australians in the corner. All of it forms a soothing sort of background music.

The train only departed an hour ago, but already I can feel my stress melting away. Over the next 41 hours, the train will cut across South Africa through places like Beaufort West, De Aar, Kimberley, and Klerksdorp. It’s a five-star hotel-on-wheels – a regular winner at the World Travel Awards, where it has won World’s Leading Luxury Train eight times and Africa’s Leading Luxury Train for ten consecutive years. US designer David Barrett did the interior in the late 1990s – a blend of old-world glamour and safari chic. If something is not wood-paneled, it’s gilded. Indeed, the Blue Train is an elegant old dame, and she’s not wearing the latest fashions. “These curtains were put up in 1997 and forgotten about,” one of the passenger's grumbles.