The Blue Train

The 'Bloutrein' (South African language) started operating in 1923. For long it operated with two steam trains, the 'Union Limited' and the 'Union Express'. These transported passengers between Johannesburg and Cape Town. In the thirties luxury features like dining rooms and air conditioning were introduced  The naming 'Blue Train' stems from later post WW-II times when after years of war/military service its public services were re-instated and the trains got their distinctive royal blue and cream looks. Still steam trains in the seventies and eighties, the carriages were fully refurbished in the seventies into their present day luxureous interiors. Only in the nineties did the days of steam finally come to their romantic end and did diesel and electric locomotives take over.

Kimberley - 'Big Hole'

The train made a stopover halfway at the town of Kimberley for a short guided tour to the Kimberley 'Big Hole' mining museum.
To many people the place name Kimberley is familiar and synonomous to South Africa and its diamonds. One of the 'Big Hole's claims to fame is that it is the largest solely hand-dug open mining pit on the face of the earth.  

When in August 1914 the mining operations ceased, the "Big Hole was excavated to a depth of 240 metres with a perimeter of 1.6 kilometers. By then the mine had since its opening in July 1871 yielded in total over three tonnes (14.5 million carats) of diamond. The abandoned 'Big Hole' was partly filled in by debris and has over time become flooded with water some 40 meters deep.

South Africa's diamond rush started after a colossal raw diamond weighing 83.50 carat (16.7 g) called the 'Star of South Africa' was found in the year 1869 at Hopetown near the Oranje Rivier. More diamonds were found on the land of a farm named 'Vooruitzicht' (Dutch for 'prospect'/'outlook'). That farm was owned at the time by two brothers of a Dutch settlers family called 'De Beer'. In 1871, they sold their farm property as a mining claim property to britisch merchant Alfred Johnson Ebden. On the property initially called 'New Rush' mining (surface digging) for diamonds started that same year and within the following year the number of miners/diggers swelled to an staggering 50.000 people. In 1873 the 'New Rush' mining site was renamed 'Kimberley'.

The famous 'De Beers' Group of Companies was founded in 1880 as De Beers Consolidated Mines Ltd.  One of its leading founders was a Britisch immigrant Cecil John Rhodes. The starting line of an interesting article in the journal Mining Weekly refers to Cecil Rhodes as "Diamond Digger" turned "rich capitalist, empire builder, successful politician, farming pioneer, supporter of education and an amazing visionary".

After his arrival in 1870 in the then Britisch Natal Colony, the 17 years young Cecil worked briefly at a cotton farm of his family but in 1871 he left to join the diamond rush frenzy at 'New Rush' (Kimberley). Cecil proved very entrepreneural working himself up from a succesful miner/digger owning a small claim in the De Beers mine, to being a merchant and owner of a growing number of claims. Culminating in  his co-founding and co-owning of the De Beers Consolidated Mines company. A company that over the past 130 years of its existence to the present day has attained and maintained the position of the world's leading producer and distributor of diamonds.

Links:
'Cecil John Rhodes, the diamong digger' - Article (Mining Weekly, 4 february 2011)

De Beers S.A. (Encyclopedia Brittanica)

'The heyday of diamond mining' (Solomon Eduardian guest house)