Luxury route
The Blue Train
Pretoria → Cape Town · South Africa
The Blue Train in pictures
Photographs by their authors, hosted on Wikimedia Commons · tap through for the licence
- Distance
- 1,600 km
- Fastest time
- ≈ 31 h
- Average speed
- 52 km/h
- Top speed
- 90 km/h
- Operator
- Transnet
- Train
- Luxury sleeper stock
- Countries
- South Africa
- In service since
- 1946
- Runs
- ≈ weekly, selected departure dates
Figures are published values, not live data · corrections log
A five-star hotel on rails: butlers, marble bathrooms and the Karoo semi-desert rolling past for 1,600 km.
South Africa’s grandest train has carried royalty and presidents since the steam era, and the rituals barely change: high tea as Highveld mine dumps give way to grassland, jacket-and-tie dinners, suites turned down with Egyptian cotton by nightfall. Southbound guests step off at Kimberley’s Big Hole diamond diggings, then wake to ostrich country and the long descent of the Hex River Pass, where vineyards pour down toward Cape Town and Table Mountain finally fills the window.
How this line was checked
- The 1518 km this route shares with OpenStreetMap relation 950176 is drawn from that relation's own nodes, thinned to within 37 m of them
- Checked against OpenStreetMap: 98.8% of this line lies within 250 m of real track (median 8 m); the longest stretch away from it is 7 km
- The operator publishes this line's timetable: the railway’s own site — a place to look it up, not a check of our drawing
- Wikipedia has an article for this line
- See for yourself: open this line on the map with OpenStreetMap's own railway drawn underneath it
Along the way
- Highveld gold country
- Kimberley’s Big Hole stop
- Matjiesfontein’s Victorian outpost
- Hex River Pass vineyards
- Table Mountain finale
How long is The Blue Train?
The Blue Train runs 1,600 km from Pretoria to Cape Town.
How long does The Blue Train take?
The fastest scheduled journey is ≈ 31 h for the 1,600 km. That is an average of 52 km/h end to end. The line's top service speed is 90 km/h.
Who runs The Blue Train?
Transnet, with luxury sleeper stock.
How old is The Blue Train?
The line has been in service since 1946. That is the year the atlas dates it from: for a modern brand running over an older railway, it is the railway's date, not the brand's.
How often does The Blue Train run?
≈ weekly, selected departure dates.
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