Wednesday, 30 April 1986: My First South African Train Trip – A Great Ride
8:50 PM, Bar at the Crocodile Motel,
30 km east of Nelspruit, eastern Transvaal
I’m channeling Ernest Hemingway tonight, sitting in a pub, smoking a Rothmans King Size, and sipping wine while I write this. I’m not sure whether Hemingway ever wrote in bars or drank wine after dinner but it’s a good fantasy. Also, I can’t see worth rhino snot in this bar so there may be some typos. There may also be some interruptions if any of the patrons get friendly with me. Right now it’s rather dead – only one older guy at the bar and me at a table. The sidewalks fold up at about 10:00, so it may be a quiet evening. Just me, my little Brother typewriter, and visions of the very stimulating day I’ve just experienced.
I won’t spend time describing the bar or why I’m here except to say that I’m near the entrance to Kruger National Park, South Africa’s finest game reserve for lions, rhinos, elephants, leopards, and other exciting fauna. Tomorrow, Louise, a sweet young “Dutchie” (Afrikaner girl) from SATOUR) will drive me up to the park.
What I do want to describe is my train trip from Middelburg to Nelspruit this afternoon. “Granny” (Mavis Urmson’s mother) delivered me to the Middelburg station at 12:30 PM to catch the 12:44 train which arrived less than five minutes late. The 200+ km trip took a little more than five hours. Slow, yes but the train hauled ass in between the numerous stops in black townships along the way. Besides, there was some spectacular, steep terrain to negotiate over the spine of the Drakensburg escarpment.
In addition to the two electric locos which got their power from an overhead catenary, there was some sort of auxiliary power car, three or four third class coaches for non-whites, two mixed first and second class compartment coaches, and two second-class coaches. Not surprisingly, the first and second class coaches were for whites only. At the end of the train was a combo baggage and conductor’s car and a freight car. I rode in a small 2nd class compartment in the last passenger car by myself.
From my perspective, the train was wonderful (excluding the segregated coaches). The first wonderful characteristic was the windows which slid all the way down – a god-send for rail photo endeavors. Second, the ties, were cement instead of wood which made for a relatively smooth ride. The cars were clean. If one wanted to take a snooze, the seats folded into bunks and the blinds could be closed to keep out the light. There was even a wash basin in the compartment. The can was just around the corner at the end of the car. I was not, however, in the mood for napping. Cameras at the ready, I popped back and forth between my compartment and the corridor where the windows opened in the other direction.
The landscape for the first 80 minutes between Middelburg and Belfast was relatively boring. Could have mistaken it for the High Plains of Kansas. The pulse of the train was exciting for a rail enthusiast like myself with the train humming across the veld.
There was one small problem. Mr.
De Jager with SATOUR in Nelspruit was tentatively expecting me, but he had been
out when I had tried to phone him in the morning. The timetable showed a seven-minute stop in
Belfast and a ten-minute layover in Waterval Boven. I figured on hopping out at one of these
stops and making a quick call to see what he had planned for me, if
anything. Since the train didn’t get
into Nelspruit until 5:55 PM, his office would be closed when I arrived. Thus, a phone connection along the way was
imperative.
East-bound train
crossing the high veld east of Belfast, Transvaal.
At 2:10, the train arrived in Belfast, about 6 minutes late. I couldn’t find the conductor to see how long
we’d be stopping as a result. I sprinted
out of the coach to the phone booth conveniently located on the platform. Shit!
It only took five and ten cent pieces, and I only had 20s and 50s. Where the fuck is the ticket window? I found the station master’s office. “Anybody here?” No answer.
Some black baggage handlers said something to me which I realized
concerned the train leaving as the engineer had just tooted the horn. I sprinted back to the coach, daypack
containing camera equipment on one shoulder and my cloth briefcase with
typewriter and other import stuff hanging from the other. The train had just started moving when I
hopped on the first step, opened the coach door, and stepped into my lifeline
with civilization. I’d have to wait
another 70 minutes to make a phone call until we reached Waterfal Boven.
This time I would be prepared. Wandering through the coach, I got 49¢ in small change for one 50¢ piece from a seedy guy in a cheap sport coat and tie. Then struck it rich with two old Afrikaner ladies a couple more compartments down, obtaining a bunch of 5s and 10s for a one rand coin.
The topography had become increasingly more rugged and interesting as we pulled into Waterval Boven. I was momentarily confused because the platform was on the right side at this station (it had been on the left in Belfast). It turned out that the door on the right side was on the other end of the coach. “Where the fuck’s the phone?” I thought while galloping around the front of the station. A railroad employee pointed me in the correct direction. The train would leave at 3:30, he said. The time was now 3:23. The phone was further away from the train than the last one – about a 50-yard dash.
I eyed the coaches nervously as I turned the crank to get the operator. “Nelspruit 23443, please.”
“23413,” she responded with a heavy Afrikaans accent.
At this point, I should have switched to Afrikaans as I know the numbers in Afrikaans but was too flustered to think straight. “No 23443,” I repeated.
“23413,” she answered again.
“No, please listen. Two…three…four …four…three.”
[ring, ring].
“Deposit 70¢, please.”
“10-20-30-40-50-60…operator, I’ve only got 5¢ coins left and the 5¢ slot on this phone is broken.”
“Just a minute,” she replied.
In the meantime, the woman answering the SATOUR phone hung up after hearing nothing on my end. The operator then redialed, after deciding to forget the last 10¢, I suppose. This time she dialed the wrong number.
[ring, ring]
“Hello, may I speak with Mr. De Jager, please.” The woman on the other end obviously had no idea what the hell I was talking about as she said something in confused Afrikaans. “Oh hell, the train’s going to take off any second,” said the frustrated voice in my head as the minute hand on my watch moved ever closer to the six. I frantically cranked the phone handle.
“Yes,” said the operator.
“You got me the wrong number,” I said frantically listening for the whir of the electric motors down the track.
“That was the other operator,” she answered. “You gave her 23413.”
“No I gave her 23443, operator.”
“No, 23413.”
“Look, I gave her 23443 three times!” I said in a panicked voice resembling a drowning man coming up for air for the third time. “My train is about to leave. Please, make the call.” [Good God, these fucking Dutchies are stubborn!]
[ring, ring]
“Sud Afrikanse Tourismerad, Goeiemiddag.”
“Goeiemiddag, mevrou. This is Will Mahoney. May I speak with Mr. De Jager, please?”
“Yes, one moment.”
“I may have to hang up before you get him on the line as my train is about ready to pull out. If so, please tell him that I’m in Waterval Boven and will be in Nelspruit on the 6:00 PM train.”
Mr. De Jager came on the line as the minute hand crept past the 6. Still no whistle. De Jager wasn’t sure of the evening’s plans. As the fucker hemmed and hawed, the whistle blew.
“My train’s leaving. If nothing’s arranged, no problem,” I said politely but quickly, hanging up the receiver in a mid-sentence of his reply.
Off I dashed. The train crept forward ever faster. Apparently, all of humanity at the Waterval Boven station was watching the crazy American pseudo-track star in hot pursuit of the train with bags bouncing. Black people on the platform yelled stuff. White people looking out the windows from my second class coach corridor watched eagerly. My Nikes hit the bottom step of the last coach. I struggled to get the door open. The train was now moving at least 10 mph as I staggered aboard. As black girls in school uniforms cheered from the platform, I returned a big grin and a clinched fist. One of the old ladies in the corridor said something in Afrikaans and I asked for a translation. “Almost didn’t!” she replied. I laughed and laughed. Now I could relax and enjoy the unfolding mountain landscape.
A few miles east of Waterval Boven, the train wound up a steep grade and through some tunnels. As the train emerged from last tunnel, I gazed out the window and couldn’t believe my eyes. The goddamned tracks up ahead did a double reverse loop to descend into the low veld. Jesus! – all this excitement for R12.50.
East of Waterval Boven, my train crossed the Drakensberg Escarpment.
After the next stop, the seedy guy who had exchanged 49¢ for my 50¢ coin called me into his compartment. Seemed he had been travelling all the way from Cape Town and now needed to sell his brand new shoes and two pairs of new trousers to get the fare for the trip back to Pretoria an hour later. So why had he travelled east on this train and had to immediately turn around and head back west, I wondered. Craziest fucking story I’d heard yet in South Africa. I begged off and joined a dark complected, bare-chested, bearded, white chap out in the corridor who was chain-smoking Chesterfields. He was an electric motor repairman from Bloemfontein on his way to Nelspruit to pick up some tools. He soon moved to the inevitable questions and comments about racial issues.
“What do you think of South Africa? It’s not as bad as portrayed in your press, right?”
“No, but I haven’t really seen much of the black townships yet.”
“The black man is better off out in the bush. He’s stupid. You’ve had a black work for you?”
“Yes.”
“You tell him very carefully how to do something. The next day he comes back and does it in the same old incorrect way again.”
[Sounds like some of the dense, stubborn white people I worked with at my last publishing job. Woops, did I say that?]
“Maybe they don’t have sufficient education to understand electric motors?” I replied.
“Look, they have the opportunity for an education, but they don’t take advantage of it. What can you do with them?”
This has become a recurring theme. I can’t dismiss it solely as racism. After all, these people are speaking from their experiences. My chain-smoking travelling companion seemed like a relatively reasonable fellow. I suppose had I been travelling across Germany 50 years ago, I would have gotten the same sort of reasonable argument about Jews from a German Christian. But the cultural differences between blacks and whites in 1986-South Africa are much more extreme than the differences one would have found in pre-war Germany. I’m really confused and frustrated by the social situation here. Who am I to make a fair assessment? Everyone here seems nice and well-meaning – black and white.
When the train pulled into the Nelspruit station, I didn’t know what, if
any, reception I’d get from SATOUR. But,
not to worry. I was approached by
Louise, a pretty young SATOUR employee with a car who whisked me off to this
motel where she had booked me a room.
Thus, my persistence with user-unfriendly pay phones and argumentative
operators had paid off.
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