Rovos rail…the most luxurious train in the world

I had been invited to the Tourism Indaba in South Africa. After the wonderful and successful event along with tour operators from Ghana and Nigeria, I was booked to travel back on the Rovos Rail. It was some experience.

“I have nothing to say and I am saying it”. This quote is from my American friend Robert Mracky from Los Angeles. Bob and his wife are Africa specialists. I meet them everywhere I go in Africa, so it was only appropriate that we meet on the Rovos Rail journey from Durban to Pretoria, after Indaba which they had attended. While having a luxurious breakfast in the most fascinating environment possible, Mr Mracky tells me that most Tourism Ministers in Africa usually have nothing to say, but they are saying it loudly. That was a se12606 42 Rovos rail…the most luxurious train in the worldgood way to start my morning. Food aboard this luxury on rails is something to die for. You have to come for dinner dressed in a suit and tie, no cell phones or devices allowed, so you eat probably an 8 course meal with samples of the best wine available in the planet while chatting with others. I settled for Hamilton white wine. My group moved from the dining car to the lounge for cocktails and then to the observation car to look at the stars. Lounges, bar & suites, champagne in the fridge, amenity case, weather forecast, Royal class Room, cookies et al. This wonder on rail is rated as the most luxurious train in the world. In the lounge car we imagined all the rich and very rich who shared these coaches long before us. Oh God what luxury.

Hosted by Rohan Vos the only person to own a private luxury train in Africa. I was thrilled sharing his train with him, travelling on the Five star ROVOS RAIL. It was an incredible journey. Travelling from Durban to Pretoria. The highest level of luxury on any moving train. I kept expecting James Bond to pop up at the dinner train carriage or at the lounge. The luxury train reminds me so much of a James Bond movie set, or Agatha Christies’ book of the Orient Express.

 

On the 2 day trip from Durban to Pretoria we experienced good food, choice wine and great company. Phones and tablets are not allowed in public areas. You can only use them in your room. No Wi-Fi on board. Mr Vos the owner wants to bring back the art of conversation. It worked. We all made friends. We broke the journey half way to visit the Nelson Mandela capture site with the brilliant artwork that looks just like metal pillars until you walk away and voila the Madiba appears. I posed with the crew and the oldest operating locomotive in the world. The train is more than 100 years old. It pulled us back to the Rovos station when we got back to Pretoria. It was fun. Below is the itinerary.

se12609 34 Rovos rail…the most luxurious train in the world

Day 1.

10hoo: The Pride of Africa departs Durban and travels in a north-westerly direction towards Pietermaritzburg, the provincial capital and major producer of aluminium and timber and dairy products.

13hoo: Lunch is served in the dining car as the train traverses the spectacular Valley of a Thousand Hills.

15hoo: Disembark at Lions River Station for a visit to the famous Ardmore Ceramics Gallery and enjoy tea overlooking the river. Here, artists are given the opportunity to work in an environment that encourages the expression of their imagination based on nature and Zulu folklore and tradition.

19hoo: Dinner is served in the dining car as the train climbs the escarpment en route to Ladysmith. Overnight on the train at Vooruitsig.

Day 2.

07hoo: Breakfast is served in the dining car until 10hoo as the train departs Vooruitsig and continues northwest across the Highveld towards Balfour, a small mining town in Mpumalanga, and Heidelberg (1903m/6243ft), site of the first Rand gold strike.

13hoo: Lunch is served in the dining car as the train traverses the gold-rich mining areas of Gauteng.

16hoo: Arrive at journey’s end at the gracious Rovos Rail Station in Pretoria.

This is how the owner describes his train and the journey

By Rohan Vos

A Wilbur Smith heroine with her own private railway coach, a man called Phil Acutt with a passion for trains and the presence of the Witbank Steam Railway in the coal-mining town where Rohan Vos ran his successful auto-spares business, all played a part in the beginnings of Rovos Rail.

se12609 33 Rovos rail…the most luxurious train in the worldse12609 32 Rovos rail…the most luxurious train in the world‘Rohan has always been obsessed with things mechanical’, remembers Anthea Vos, who has been at his side throughout and has raised a family in and around developing the railway business. ‘In fact, he started his first business with the capital derived from the sale of a 1940 Packard and a 1928 Austin that he rebuilt. Rohan was involved in so many ventures, but I didn’t see this one coming’.

In 1985, Rohan and Anthea took up a last-minute invitation on a train trip in Magaliesberg for business suppliers. ‘I became a train widow on that day’, says Anthea. ‘I sat all dressed up by myself’, Rohan spent most of the time in the engine with the driver. The irony was that we should have seen then how difficult it would be-the train brake down and we were bussed back to town’. The same year, influenced by his friend Phil Acutt’s love of trains and the work done by the Railway

se12604 36 Rovos rail…the most luxurious train in the world

se12601 37 Rovos rail…the most luxurious train in the worldPreservation Society in Witbank, Rohan attended an auction to buy a coach or two-the intention was to restore four carriages and hitch them to a South African Railway (SAR) train as a family caravan. Steam-train enthusiast, Geoff Pethick, was present at the auction and assisted him. ‘It was the 26th of September- a cold day with raining the air and I had hoped Rohan wasn’t another penniless lunatic with grand ideas, he recalls. As we chatted, I quickly realised that here was a man of vision’. Several coaches were purchased and taken to the Society’s yards in Witbank to be rebuilt. One of them, private saloon 15063, is still in service and another, an engineer’s caboose, stood at Cape Town’s V & A Waterfront for many years where it served as the marketing and reservations office.

The complications of working with the South African Transport Services administration soon convinced Rohan that he needed to be self-sufficient where possible. As a result, he purchased a 1938 19D locomotive from Loewenthal’s Scrap Metal in Johannesburg. It was rebuilt by Rovos Rail and named BIANCA after one of his daughters.

se12603 38 Rovos rail…the most luxurious train in the worldse12601 40 Rovos rail…the most luxurious train in the worldNegotiations began with Sam Taute of SAR, Rohan was granted permission to run his train in December 1986. This was when the idea of running a vintage train as a business venture was born. The tariff quoted by the authorities for hauling the train was however, extremely high and would have made the ‘family caravan’ an extravagant exercise.

After his objection to the charge, SAR returned a well thought-out curve ball, giving Rohan the right to sell tickets. ‘I remember the occasion very clearly: on a wintry evening I was subsiding into a hot bath with my Red Heart Rum and Coke close at hand. There’d been a power cut, so musing by candlelight about the consequences of turning a hobby into a business, I let my imagination float around in delusions of grandeur. But I knew that launching into the arena of tourism and trains, of which I had no experience, held many dangers. It was an unchartered course and I had little idea where to start, let alone where to aim. However, a unique challenge was right up my street and the decision was made to go ahead. This was- unknown to me at the time – a life-changing moment and sadly, during the next few years or so, I had many agonising moments regretting the move. I could never have imagined how all-consuming the business was to become both financially and emotionally.

‘Consisting of a locomotive and seven carriages, the train was launched on 29 April 1989, and with four paying passengers, friends and press we set off for the Eastern Transvaal. So, with a four-night lowveld experience and in 1991 the Pretoria-to-Cape Town run, the business began to find direction.

‘However, as any train operator or airline will confirm, running a schedule is risky and nerve-wracking. To project consistency and reliability to agents and passengers, it’s imperative to run according to the advertised schedule. Of course, this wears rather thin when passengers loads are less than the number required to break even financially. I found to my horror that one can lose considerably more money establishing a schedule and consequently a reputation than it might cost to buy or construct the hardware.

‘To finance this one-way street, I had sold an assortment of cash-generating businesses in and around Witbank, mostly to my management partners. Just prior to the train launch, I sold my Witbank and Secunda spares businesses to a public company. I accepted shares for this transaction and these were lodged with the bank as security for the overdraft to finance the train operation. Then, surprise, surprise, the public company went insolvent and my shares were declared valueless. My bankers, of course, were not amused.

So, with the first democratic elections coming in 1994 and confidence in the business future of South Africa tumbling to an all-time low, they put pressure on me to repay the overdraft. Although, I was of the opinion that they were well enough secured and that I could service the account, they were not interested and proceeded to summons me for the outstanding amount in late 1993.

‘The operation was close to break-even at this time, but nobody was interested in investing in the business and I had exhausted every possible avenue of financial assistance.

‘Visiting the London World Travel Market during this trying time, I met tour operator Philip Morrrell, owner of Jules Verne in London. Between us, we hatched a plan to run the train from Cape Town to Victoria Falls. The package was advertised in the Sunday Telegraph during late December and it was with trepidation that I answered the call from him soon after Christmas. To my relief, he reported that sales were going extremely well and nearly four train loads had been booked. My answer, after a suitably stunned silence was “send cash”.

‘And so, bankruptcy was avoided by a nose, and to illustrate the turnaround it was in fact a year later that I bought 38 redundant carriages from South African Railways. Since then we have never looked back, although the scars of battle are always there reminding me never to relax’.

Armed with Les Pivnic’s book on dining cars, Rohan started the search for suitable coaches. An early target was the Jewish Guild Country Club in Johannesburg where three vandalised and dilapidated dining cars stood as part of an aborted restaurant venture. All three-KEI, NILE and MODDER- were hauled to Witbank and returned to the rails.

In the years since then, family life has been inseparable from the business with Rovos Rail growing up alongside the Vos children. Family holidays always had another agenda as they scoured the far ends of the country for coaches and locos to add to their collection.

se12601 41 Rovos rail…the most luxurious train in the worldAll the engines acquired for Rovos Rail have been named after the Vos children-Shaun, Brenda, Bianca and Tiffany- and nothing could be more appropriate as their history and memories are so tightly interwoven with the Rovos story. On the 10th anniversary of Rovos Rail, the magnificently restored and rebuilt locomotive-25NC 3484, which had been converted from coal-firing to oil burning- was christened MARJORIE by Rohan’s mother, Mrs Marjorie Vos.

Before the first commercial trip, Joy Strydom joined Rovos Rail as its first employee in May 1988 and is still with the company. ‘Rohan called me out of the blue and we met at Cape Town restaurant with a railway-coach bar. Rohan spent most of the time checking it out to see what had been removed and which features remained. The romance of the railway project-and his enthusiasm-had me hooked.’

Through two decades of hard work, trying times, bankers and accountants (who were by turns sympathetic and sceptical), the birth of a new democracy and a tourism surge, there’s been a special magic about Rovos Rail. ‘Many of us in those early years didn’t believe that Rohan would ever achieve what he’d set out to do,’ says Pethick. ‘It’s wonderful to see that, despite ups and downs, Rovos Rail is doing so well and has helped preserve much of our railway history.

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on Sep 19, 2015

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