One of the privileges of my life has been that I’ve often been able to travel by rail. In style on the Blue Train, in comfort on the old Trans Karoo Express - and once, in my youth, with a beautiful girl on the suburban line to Muizenberg (it didn’t work. Not the train - the trip).

But one of the funnest journeys I’ve done in the recent past was the Museum-to-Museum Tour on the Outeniqua Choo Tjoe, which now runs between the Outeniqua Transport Museum in George and the Dias Museum Complex (with its Maritime Museum and its Old Post Office Tree) in Mossel Bay. We did it again on Monday the 24th, Heritage Day, to celebrate the centenary of the line - which was officially opened with a ceremony in Mossel Bay on the same day in 1907.

Amazing that the centenary should fall on Heritage Day - and appropriate, too.

When first I came to live in Knysna, back in 1983, I traveled from Jozi to George by train - and finally from George to Knysna on the Outeniqua Choo Tjoe, which ran on the Knysna line until August last year, when floods damaged the line so badly that the service had to be suspended.

Unfortunately many people seem to think that the closure of the line meant the closure of the Outeniqua Choo Tjoe - but this is not the case. The train was diverted to the Mossel Bay line and is now running as successfully as it ever did. No doubt this has to do with the creation of the Museum-to-Museum Tour, which was a concept that was dreamed up by the board of Mossel Bay Tourism - which also funded the construction of new platforms at the Dias Museum Complex and has put a considerable amount of money into marketing the train as an icon for the entire Garden Route.

As a measure of the success of the new route, Marcia Holm, Mossel Bay Tourism’s operations manager, estimates that about 80% of the phone calls that come into her information office these days are enquiries about the train.

The Garden Route has all the potential to become a steam train destination of note. Steam train tourism is huge. They call themselves ‘anoraks’ - the guys who chase trains around just to have the pleasure of saying “I saw an 1896 Class 7 steam loco” - which, by the way, is the oldest running loco in South Africa. It was fired up to pull the VIP’s coach at the Centenary Celebrations.

In fact, the Garden Route has the potential to become to steam tourism in Africa what it is to golf - an absolute Mecca. The Garden Route has the Outeniqua Choo Tjoe, the Voorbaai Yards (Transnet’s only steam train refurbishment yards) and it has the lines - and the scenery - that make it totally unique. Imagine being able to offer day trips from George to Mossel Bay, Oudtshoorn or Knysna (if the line is repaired) - and imagine overnight trips for game viewing in Uniondale. That number of options would create critical mass and, at the same time, leverage one of the Garden Route’s great attractions into one of the continent’s major icons.

There’s more information about the Outeniqua Choo Tjoe here.