The Blue Train

The Blue Train has been operating its luxury train journeys in South Africa’s for over 60 years and has hosted royalty and heads of state amongst its distinguished guests.  

The luxurious suites are elegantly furnished and the bathrooms are tiled in marble and finished with gold fittings.  The service on the Blue Train is first class with a dedicated butler who will pander to your every need during the journey. The meals are prepared by a team of enthusiastic and professional chefs who prepare delicious and sometimes exotic specialities like Karoo lamb, Ostrich fillet and Knysna oysters.  The gourmet meals are accompanied by a fine selection of award winning South African wines.

The Blue Train operates between Pretoria and Cape Town and can be chartered out for group safaris or golfing holidays.  

Pretoria to Cape Town

On the southbound scheduled route to Cape Town the Blue Train stops at the historic town of Kimberley where you will visit the Big Hole and the Diamond Museum. The town has considerable historical significance due its diamond mining past and siege during the Second Boer War. Notable personalities such as Cecil John Rhodes, made their fortune here, and the roots of the De Beers Corporation can also be traced to the early days of the mining town.

On the Northbound route you will visit the old colonial town of Matjiesfontein.

Matjiesfontein was founded in 1884 by a young Scotsman called James Logan.  The town served as a stopover on the route to the Kimberley Diamond fields at a time when Cecil Rhodes’ vision of a “road to the North” – his dream of a Cape to Cairo line was being realised and was expanding to the Zambezi.

It was also a popular spot for those seeking relief from ailing health.  The Lord Milner Hotel was frequented by most of the British army commanders including Lord Roberts, Douglas Haig, Edmund Ironside. Other guests included Edgar Wallace, the British novelist, playwright and war correspondent Edgar Wallace who sent many of his unofficial dispatches from here as well as Lord Randolph Churchill.