Re: South African Railway on line

John, that is a fantastic on-line book. I went straight to what is just about my favorite rail line in SA, the Donnybrook - Underberg branch. In 1974 I went on a Kenya safari with my wife and about 25 ladies that belonged to the American Dietetic Association (there was one other husband on the trip). My wife then went with the group to Italy while I flew to Johannesburg on an exploratory trip to check out South African steam. The first ten days I traveled everywhere by train. Finally on the last two days I built up enough courage to rent a car in Durban and drive on the "wrong" side of the road. From the Durban airport the rental car exit led straight into a four lane divided highway going south. Impossible to go wrong. Finally I had to turn right off the freeway and cross the opposing lanes to get to Umzinto. I stopped, looked to make sure the road was clear and started across. A huge truck going 60 miles per hour missed me by inches. After recovering from the shock, I caught the action on the 2 foot gauge from Umzinto to Donnybrook. Just a couple of hours before I had to turn around to go back to Durban, a 3'6" gauge 2-6-2 +2-6-2 GCA Garrat pulled out with the mixed train to Underberg. The Indian Summer afternoon, the forest and farm setting, the pastures with Zulu huts was just magical, the highlight of the trip. There wasn't time to follow the train to Underberg with it's fabulous setting at the foot of the snowy Drakensberg range. I never did get back to the Underberg branch, but the fabulous photos in the on-line book gives some idea what would have been in store. Even so the last photo in this group is still one of my favorites.













Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/16/2019 09:16PM by Olaf Rasmussen.