nown as the “window to the soul of Africa”, the Blue Train travels 994 miles between Pretoria and Cape Town, South Africa, with full-sized windows that provide panoramic views of the diverse South African terrain. The vision of controversial diamond miner Cecil John Rhodes, and ridden by President Nelson Mandela, this luxurious train has been steeped in history since its inception and tells the story of British colonialism in this part of Africa.
Rhodes, the founder of the Rhodes scholarship, and former Prime Minister of the Cape colony, envisioned the construction of a Trans-African railway, connecting Cape Town to Cairo. However, during his lifetime he was only able to connect the northernmost and southernmost points of South Africa. Back then, the Blue Train was known as the Union Trains; the Union Limited (southbound) and the Union Express (northbound) transported passengers to diamond/gold mines and exotic locales in state-of-the-art carriages.
Born in 1853, Cecil Rhodes believed that Englishmen were the greatest species in the world, and it was God’s task to expand the British Empire. He envisioned a British Manifestation rooted in the establishment of a Cape Town-Cairo Railway. Rhodes gained large wealth from founding the De Beer Company in Kimberly, South Africa, monopolizing more than 90 percent of the world’s diamond supply within 20 years. His political endeavors included becoming Prime Minister of the British Cape Colony and President of the British South African Company which focused on expanding territory. These expansion efforts resulted in the British annexation of Nyasaland (now Malawi), Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), and Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).
During World War II, the Union Train ran as a troop train from 1941 to 1942 and was put away for storage until the end of the war. The train then resumed operations and was officially renamed “The Blue Train” in 1946. In the 1970s, the Blue Train underwent carriage-by-carriage renovations and became what’s known today as a “five-star hotel on wheels."
In 1997, President Nelson Mandela was aboard for the inaugural trip of the new Blue Train, accompanied by Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, Mia Farrow, Naomi Campbell, Quincy Jones, and then-Liberian president Charles Taylor. Mandela's fight against racial segregation as a politician, philanthropist, and anti-apartheid advocate led to him being imprisoned for 27 years being released in 1990. He became South Africa’s first black president and the first elected in a fully representative democratic election in 1994.
In his remarks at the Blue Train gala in 1997, Nelson said that the Pretoria to Cape Town route had played a significant role in his life, as the train follows the route he was driven after his arrest in 1963. He says the delightful train ride was quite different from being in “the back of a police van which drove all day and night”, and was glad that the Blue Train “allowed our honored foreign friends to get a first-hand awareness, which a jet plane can never provide, not only of the beauty of our land but of the many remarkable peoples who have joined hands to form this new nation.”
Like the train itself, Rhodes's legacy has also been reshaped by modern South African, and around the world, as the entirety of his life's work is being held to account.
Despite decades of viewing Rhodes as a national hero, his actions of injustice, and oppression of Africans has been seen under controversial light in the past few decades. Rhodes’ Glen Grey Act restricted Africans’ land ownership, voting rights, and imposed a tax for not engaging in wage labor, hoping to have an inflow of cheap labor in Kimberly. The Act became law in 1894 and is seen as a basis for racial segregation, earning Rhodes his nickname “an architect of the apartheid.”
Movements across the world have called for the removal of statues of Cecil Rhodes. In 2015, students at the University of Cape Town protested for the removal of Rhodes’ statue and decolonization of the white-centric education in South Africa under the “Rhodes Must Fall” movement. They believed that Rhodes’ statue sent a signal of white superiority, and covered the statue in human feces.
The Rhodes Must Fall movement has inspired college students across the country to follow suit. Five years after the successful removal of the University’s statue, the Rhodes Must Fall movement has been revived by Oxford students following global calls of anti-racism. In June, hundreds of students protested outside of Oxford’s Oriel College where Rhodes studied, calling for the removal of a Rhodes statue that represents imperialism and racism. Despite the possibility of losing financial support from conservative donors, the University has voted for the removal of the Rhodes statue; however, an independent commission of inquiry states that the statue will not be removed until at least 2021.
In early July, other activists beheaded the Rhodes monument at Table Mountain, a famous tourist attraction in South Africa.
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Africa's Window to the Soul
August 2, 2020
This luxurious train has been steeped in history since its inception.
K
nown as the “window to the soul of Africa”, the Blue Train travels 994 miles between Pretoria and Cape Town, South Africa, with full-sized windows that provide panoramic views of the diverse South African terrain. The vision of controversial diamond miner Cecil John Rhodes, and ridden by President Nelson Mandela, this luxurious train has been steeped in history since its inception and tells the story of British colonialism in this part of Africa.
Rhodes, the founder of the Rhodes scholarship, and former Prime Minister of the Cape colony, envisioned the construction of a Trans-African railway, connecting Cape Town to Cairo. However, during his lifetime he was only able to connect the northernmost and southernmost points of South Africa. Back then, the Blue Train was known as the Union Trains; the Union Limited (southbound) and the Union Express (northbound) transported passengers to diamond/gold mines and exotic locales in state-of-the-art carriages.
Born in 1853, Cecil Rhodes believed that Englishmen were the greatest species in the world, and it was God’s task to expand the British Empire. He envisioned a British Manifestation rooted in the establishment of a Cape Town-Cairo Railway. Rhodes gained large wealth from founding the De Beer Company in Kimberly, South Africa, monopolizing more than 90 percent of the world’s diamond supply within 20 years. His political endeavors included becoming Prime Minister of the British Cape Colony and President of the British South African Company which focused on expanding territory. These expansion efforts resulted in the British annexation of Nyasaland (now Malawi), Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), and Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).
During World War II, the Union Train ran as a troop train from 1941 to 1942 and was put away for storage until the end of the war. The train then resumed operations and was officially renamed “The Blue Train” in 1946. In the 1970s, the Blue Train underwent carriage-by-carriage renovations and became what’s known today as a “five-star hotel on wheels."
In 1997, President Nelson Mandela was aboard for the inaugural trip of the new Blue Train, accompanied by Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, Mia Farrow, Naomi Campbell, Quincy Jones, and then-Liberian president Charles Taylor. Mandela's fight against racial segregation as a politician, philanthropist, and anti-apartheid advocate led to him being imprisoned for 27 years being released in 1990. He became South Africa’s first black president and the first elected in a fully representative democratic election in 1994.
In his remarks at the Blue Train gala in 1997, Nelson said that the Pretoria to Cape Town route had played a significant role in his life, as the train follows the route he was driven after his arrest in 1963. He says the delightful train ride was quite different from being in “the back of a police van which drove all day and night”, and was glad that the Blue Train “allowed our honored foreign friends to get a first-hand awareness, which a jet plane can never provide, not only of the beauty of our land but of the many remarkable peoples who have joined hands to form this new nation.”
Like the train itself, Rhodes's legacy has also been reshaped by modern South African, and around the world, as the entirety of his life's work is being held to account.
Despite decades of viewing Rhodes as a national hero, his actions of injustice, and oppression of Africans has been seen under controversial light in the past few decades. Rhodes’ Glen Grey Act restricted Africans’ land ownership, voting rights, and imposed a tax for not engaging in wage labor, hoping to have an inflow of cheap labor in Kimberly. The Act became law in 1894 and is seen as a basis for racial segregation, earning Rhodes his nickname “an architect of the apartheid.”
Movements across the world have called for the removal of statues of Cecil Rhodes. In 2015, students at the University of Cape Town protested for the removal of Rhodes’ statue and decolonization of the white-centric education in South Africa under the “Rhodes Must Fall” movement. They believed that Rhodes’ statue sent a signal of white superiority, and covered the statue in human feces.
The Rhodes Must Fall movement has inspired college students across the country to follow suit. Five years after the successful removal of the University’s statue, the Rhodes Must Fall movement has been revived by Oxford students following global calls of anti-racism. In June, hundreds of students protested outside of Oxford’s Oriel College where Rhodes studied, calling for the removal of a Rhodes statue that represents imperialism and racism. Despite the possibility of losing financial support from conservative donors, the University has voted for the removal of the Rhodes statue; however, an independent commission of inquiry states that the statue will not be removed until at least 2021.
In early July, other activists beheaded the Rhodes monument at Table Mountain, a famous tourist attraction in South Africa.
