Category : Copper Trail

Rovos Rail completes Copper Trail

To Angola and beyond!

Two trains travelling to Angola, via the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), at the same time, is beyond anything we could have ever imagined completing. In our 33 years, we at Rovos Rail have managed to pull off some pretty crazy things but this could possibly top the list!

The first journey to depart Pretoria was Trail of Two Oceans, which left Rovos Rail Station on the 28th of June. It travelled six separate journeys with six different groups of guests:

  • Pretoria to Cape Town
  • Cape Town to Dar es Salaam
  • Dar es Salaam to Lobito
  • Lobito to Dar es Salaam
  • Dar es Salaam to Cape Town
  • Cape Town to Pretoria

With manager, Hennie, at its helm, the train travelled about 23 400kms (14 540 miles). It was gone so long that at times we forgot it was out but Hennie and his team returned safely back to Pretoria on Friday, 9 September after 73 days travelling through South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, the DRC and Angola.

The Copper Trail train departed Pretoria on the 29th of June for Victoria Falls after which train manager, Lawrence, and his team had a few days to make their train sparkle before welcoming guests on July 7th for the maiden voyage of the Copper Trail.

The train travelled four separate trips with four different groups of guests:

  1. Pretoria to Victoria Falls
  2. Victoria Falls to Lobito (Angola)
  3. Lobito to Victoria Falls
  4. Victoria Falls to Pretoria

About 9 000kms was travelled with the team being out for 39 days. They returned safely on August, 15th to a warm welcome and many guys from all of us.

Neither journey came without challenges which included the Chambeshi bridge closure, unexpected mining debris left on the railway line causing minor derailments, unforeseen and costly Covid-19 testing enforced by over-zealous border control authorities, visa acquisition as well as water supply.

One of the ways we tried to alleviate the stress of the water issue was to sponsor three 10,000L tanks on six-metre stands right next to the existing water supply infrastructure in Kolwezi, DRC. Things did not go as planned as only one 5,000L tank was installed so we had to purchase a bigger volume pump in Kolwezi to fill the train faster.

One has to make a decision when travelling through countries such as the DRC and to some extent, Angola, because a culture exists of greasing palms in order to get anything done. We chose not to participate in this because we do not want to be part of what perpetuates this cycle but it made our planning and operational objectives a great deal more difficult and things moved extremely slowly. This was by far the most stressful aspect of coordinating these two journeys and we would like to say a big thank you to our operations manager, Joe Mathala, for flying back-and-forth between Angola, the DRC and South Africa to keep things moving along. We feel the process might have aged Joe by hundreds of years but as always, he got the job done and on time so we are deeply grateful for his hustle!

Our intrepid band of travellers hailed from countries such as Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, the United States, the United Kingdom and South Africa.

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Rovos Rail, we’re back on track

Rovos Rail founder and CEO, Rohan Vos,
with his daughter and COO, Tiffany Vos-Thane

February 2022 was an important month for us at Rovos Rail. The first of the month marked 677 days since South Africa went into hard lockdown and it also marked the day we were officially back on track.

With the ever-moving goal posts of the Covid-19 pandemic we found ourselves holding on a little tighter with each announcement from our own government, politicians overseas and from the WHO. It felt like every few weeks we were postponing our contingency plans until at last we were able to say that February would realistically be when we could let our industry partners know that we were back on track and fully operational. It was indeed a relief and also a very happy month!

We have operated numerous journeys since February, including exceptional private charters which have been lovely successes. Our first advertised Cape Town to Dar es Salaam trip departed on 2 July with train manager, Hennie, at its helm. Despite one or two unforeseen challenges, guests and staff enjoyed a fabulous trip with the team receiving the highest of compliments! Thank you to our wonderful group of guests for their joviality and positivity.

Hennie’s and his team had a few days off in Dar es Salaam before the train, carrying a new band of intrepid travellers, set off on our second ever Trail of Two Oceans sojourn which will take guests from the Tanzanian capital through Zambia, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) with journey’s end in Angola. The sojourn was certainly an adventure and the train arrived safely into Lobito on 3 August.

The maiden voyage of our 15-day Copper Trail trip also departed in July and the first leg of the journey was a lovely success with guests thoroughly enjoying themselves and giving us constructive feedback so that we can further improve the itinerary. Train manager, Lawrence, and his team travelled through parts of Africa none of us have ever seen and sent through some funny, heartwarming and wild stories!

In amongst these two long trips, we have also operated shorter journeys to Durban, Cape Town and Victoria Falls so it is safe to say we are back on track! Our train teams are busy, Rovos Rail Station is once again a busting hive of activity and our inboxes are full.

To celebrate our restart and in many ways a new beginning, we put together a photo and video shoot with new faces, new coaches and new energy!

We would like to sincerely thank Simone Dominique Shapiro from The Safari Gals for being our lady of the day, Jonathan Boynton-Lee for being our dapper gentleman, Ross Hillier for his phenomenal photographic talent and Dylan Hohls from Motionworx for capturing it all on video. You were a dream team and we hope to be able to work with you all again one day soon.

We are delighted to be able to share our video with you and will be releasing our new photographic content soon.

It feels so good to be back on track and we can’t wait to welcome you on board one of our journeys soon.

Rovos Rail is back on track
Oh, the places you’ll go!
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