Trainspotting in winelands
If it chugs and toots, it’s magic THE LITTLE ENGINE THAT CAN...
When I was a kid (around seven years old, so it was a really long time ago) in East London, I looked forward keenly to the arrival of my Uncle Jim in his little Mini from Johannesburg each December.
For one thing, it meant riding the miniature train, followed by tea and scones at the Marina Glen municipal camping site just behind Eastern Beach.
It was real little Enid Blyton kind of a train – more of a caricature than anything else – but it puffed and chugged and tooted, just like The Little Engine That Could.
I thought such innocent fun had gone the way of SA Railways and Harbours until I recently satisfied an urge and visited the Winelands Light Railway a couple of kilometres down the road from my home outside Stellenbosch.
“I guess you can say this is a hobby that got out of hand,” laughs 36-year-old engineer Andries Keyser, who started building his first locomotive while at high school in KwaZulu-Natal.
“I was always that strange kid who played with trains. It was a personal thing because there’s no family history or connection with the railways.”
Keyser was 19 and already an established member of the Pietermaritzburg Model Engineer Society when he started building his first running replica.
“I came to Stellenbosch University to study engineering but dropped out after 10 days because I found it too boring. All I wanted was to make things.
“I returned to KwaZulu-Natal, where I had a workshop at home, and finished my engine by the time I was 24.
“It had taken me five years and that engine effectively became my portfolio of evidence. I was offered several jobs in the engineering profession.”
The next step was building a track.
“I was 25 when the Durban Motor Show was resuscitated. I asked first if the society could have a stand and then, three weeks before the show opened, offered to run a track through the exhibition.
“It was such a success that I installed it permanently at a coffee shop in Howick on the KZN Midlands Meander.”
Keyser says “it takes a certain kind of person to build and run a railroad commercially and it seems like I’m that type”.
After one failed attempt to open a miniature railway facility in Stellenbosch, he met the owner of Cape Garden Centre – a nursery and outdoor living centre at Koelenhof on the northern fringes of Stellenbosch – and told him his ambition.
“He said ‘I’ve been waiting for someone like you for 14 years’.”
Winelands Light Railway (WLR) (www.winelandsrail.co.za) started running in December 2019, and is open to the public over weekends. Access to the park is R60 and includes a complimentary train ride, but R120 gets you entrance and unlimited rides on the day.
I drive past the place just about every day and have often wondered at the packed car park but never turned in – till I decided to use the facility for a photo shoot.
One look at the wonder on the faces of the little ones (and the wistfulness of many adults) told me the magic of steam has never died. It’s different now – not just because I’m all big and growed – but because the locomotives are working replicas of real trains. Perhaps that’s their attraction.
There’s a whimsical touch. Keyser tells me one of his most popular rides is the “gender reveal”.
Prospective parents are given a sealed letter by their obstetrician disclosing whether the baby will be a boy or girl. They plan a “reveal” party and hand the letter to Keyser. The younger partygoers and parents-to-be clamber aboard while everyone else gathers around the track. The little engine then exits a tunnel spewing either pink or blue smoke. Sweet.
What touched me most, though, was the presence of a young teenager – Keyser tells me he’s there every weekend – of around 13.
He’s dressed in the WLR uniform, carries an oil rag and has soot on his cheek. He cleans, shunts … does everything including drive the engines.
You can see he’s having the time of his life.