The Travel Essay

When Cecil Rhodes dreamt of a railway from Cape Town to Cairo, he was ahead of his time. His successors managed to have the railway built in stages up to Northern Rhodesia, the present Zambia. Today, however, one can travel from Cape Town to Dar es Salaam and that, is a major achievement. The connecting line from Zambia to Tanzania was built by the Chinese in the 1970s, giving land-locked Zambia an access to a port.

But this is not the story of Cecil Rhodes’ dream.This is a more intimate view of the remaining vestiges of a railway journey of the early part of the last century. The first class carriages of the time were reserved for whites only: Gandhi’s expulsion from a first class cabin in Pietermaritzburg remains etched in everyone’s mind. But railways were an important aspect of Africa’s development. Long before passable roads were built, railways reached into the furthest interior and brought out the treasures of the dark continent.

One such railway was the Zambezi Sawmills Railway which ran from Mulobezi in southern Zambia to Livingstone where it connected to Southern Rhodesia (the present Zimbabwe) across the Victoria Falls. The line was built in the 1920s to transport Zambezi teak to Britain and its colonies. There are no teak forests to exploit now. Zambia is now a copper exporter and this is mined in the north-west of the country: the copper belt. So, the line has fallen into disuse. It has no commercial value except for a weekly run by Zambia’s rail authority to keep the villages and small towns connected to Livingstone, the capital of the southern province.

The Royal Livingstone Express, however, is a first class passenger train that uses part of the Mulobezi line to showcase the opulent life on a first class carriage of a time gone by. The train is pulled by a steam engine that was manufactured in England in the 1920s. The coaches have been restored with furnishings of the early part of the last century. There are wood-panelled dining cars, luxurious seating carriages, a bar and viewing deck. It is, in short, a luxury restaurant on wheels.

Three days a week, the train departs from its sidings in Livingstone for a dinner run through the outskirts of the town and through a small game reserve to another siding where the locomotive is then switched around. On the train, meanwhile, a fine five course dinner is served while this is done.

We joined the train at five in the afternoon. The sun had already begun to descend as its orange rays cut through the mango trees lining the siding. The engine had been fired up, fumes of grey smoke came out of its chimney and a red carpet led from the front to the steps into the sitting carriage. The train manager, Ben Costa, and his assistant, dressed in tuxedo, stood ready to receive us. Glasses of champagne and punch were handed out and we drank slowly, taking in the sights as the evening rays threw shadows on the ground. There was an English family of four, an Indian couple who seemed to have popped out of a Bollywood movie, a lost-looking Belgian who was a train afficionado, and a motley assortment of others. We made a total of around twenty on a train meant for fifty.

At half-past five, the train sounded its whistle and we lurched forward. I had forgotten the days of steam travel when the smooth pull from the station was unheard of. Today’s electric and diesel trains have so many control systems that one never knows whether the train has pulled out or whether it has come to a stop, except on British trains which somehow have never seemed to be able to either run on time or run smoothly. But here, on the Royal Livingstone Express, there are no smooth suspension systems or dampeners. We continued to lurch forward, and then came to a stop with the screeching sounds of the steam locomotive crying though the air. We were at a road crossing and the barriers were being brought down to allow us across. Soon we were off at a rattling speed of around twenty kilometres per hour. Just the speed at which my grandmother would have made her train journeys in India, in her time. Surprisingly, this is a wonderful speed at which to observe the world outside.

Children ran alongside the train, trying to keep up with the chugging carriages while women with babies on their hips stood watching from the side. Men on bicycles waved us along. Occasionally we would slow down, and then pull up a little faster. Once in a while the train would hoot its way along the tracks. As the train rounded a bend, you could see the setting sun through the trees in the distance.

On board, meanwhile, the majority of the travellers and the lost Belgian had gathered in the bar and the viewing deck. Wine, beer and other refreshments were served. It was too much for me to be amongst this crowd. I sat in the sitting carriage and looked out at the shifting scenery. My beer spilled over the couch when the train rattled from one set of rails to another. This was how I remembered railway journeys when taking the train to Kuala Lumpur, and then to Tapah Road, from Singapore in the old days of the Malayan Railway. The buffet car on that Malayan Railway train also did a wonderful fried rice that I have never been able to taste since.

The Bollywood couple soon came and sat in a far seat. They seemed too engrossed in one another to enjoy the unfolding landscape. The woman kept throwing her locks of hair as if she was on a set, and the man, burly and overweight, kept looking into her eyes: the mysteries of love.

An hour later we entered the game reserve and on that day the game had been reserved: we only saw a lanky giraffe in the yonder. But that was not the reason for the trip. It was to enjoy the old world of the white traveller. As the sun set and darkness fell all around, we arrived at the designated siding and the dinner bell was sounded.

We trooped into the dining cars: there were two. We sat in the first and some tables away sat the Bollywood couple. The long-lost Belgian found himself a seat near the entrance to the carriage. Freshly baked rolls were brought out, and an undescribably tasty cream of tomato soup was served. There was a fine selection of South African wines to choose from. The soup was followed by a vegetable roulade and then by a tomato and basil risotto. The main dish was a braised lamb, done to a perfection that allowed it to be sliced through like butter. Dessert was a superb date cake, but I was already too full to try it.

While the dinner service was going on the Bollywood star got up and ran to the wash room at the end. She was gone long, and then came back with a wet towel in her hand. Something had lodged in her eye and she was having difficulty in getting it out. The burly man tried to blow into her eyes several times, without success. She ran back between meals to wash her eyes and it must have resolved at some point because when coffee was served she sat as if she was back on a set. I think it was because of too much gazing by the burly Indian that she had something lodged in her eye in the first place.

We had already started our journey back by the time the lamb was served. As the train slowly lurched its way in the darkness we could see the faint light from electric bulbs hanging outside the houses along the track. A bright moon had come up and showed itself through the trees. We moved back into the seating carriages where we continued to sip coffee. Gentle orchestral music played though the speakers in the carriage. Then, as we neared Livingstone, the theme from “Out of Africa” wafted through the carriage and we came to a stop in the sidings. My companion broke into tears: the journey, the music and Africa were simply too much to bear.

Sree Kumar