A blast from the pass

Paul Ash takes a ride on the surviving rails of the Hex River pass

The upper reaches of the Hex River mountains are a lonely and desolate place for a train wreck. On a wind-scoured slope a few miles below the summit of the railway pass, there is a stone obelisk with the names of soldiers of the Kaffrarian Rifles, whose troop train rolled off the tracks here during the night of September 26 1914. "Faithful Unto Death", reads the inscription.

The regiment was on its way to Cape Town to set sail for the Western Front. The story - perhaps apocryphal - is that the engine driver, who had something of a reputation, had once boasted about how fast he could take a train through the Hex River Pass. Another account says the brakes failed and the train ran away. Either way, at 2am, the troop train began the long, steep descent of the pass. Minutes later, it was going so fast that it was flicking like a whip through the tight curves.

"The engine was the first to leave the rails," writes Lennox van Onselen in Head of Steel. "It fell down a decline and rolled about 30 feet down the slope in clouds of smoke and steam. Next a few coaches telescoped; others following jumped the rails." Eight soldiers were killed and 89 were injured. That the dead were spared the horrors of the trenches was cold comfort to their mothers.

The Hex River railway pass is closed now, and the track has been lifted from the summit at Matroosberg all the way to Touws River. Trains now run underneath the mountains through the long Hexton tunnels which opened in 1989.

When it was finished in 1877, though, the pass was the crowning achievement of local railway engineering. It claws its way up the mountain-side on a ruling grade of 1:40, twisting around buttresses and through deep cuttings. In 27km, it climbs 900m vertical metres from De Doorns to the summit at Matroosberg. Where the engineers Thomas Brounger and George Pauling couldn't go round the mountain, they went through it. Remarkably, the pass was built in record time and ahead of schedule by sheer, bloody-handed force of will.

The track on the south - and more dramatic - side of the pass survives, thanks to the quick actions of local farmer Stefaan Jordaan, who heard that unless anyone objected, Spoornet was going to lift the rails.

Jordaan did object - there was history in those hills and the possibility of a unique tourist operation to boot. He submitted a business plan to the rail operator and managed to fend off the scrappers. The result is the Hexpas Express - a vintage Fordson tractor converted to run on rails, and two light passenger coaches.

The "express" makes regular trips into these lonely hills from its little depot near De Doorns. The driver, Japie Januarie, used to be a platelayer of the track gang that worked the pass. He tells stories of sun-blasted summer days repairing broken rails and bitter nights spent in culverts and caves when they got caught out in foul weather.

As the tractor chugs up the grade, Jordaan calls frequent halts to talk about the pass and the flowers and plants, to admire the view or look at the graffiti carved by British soldiers into walls of a cutting in 1902. At Tunnel station, the passengers disembark to eat their picnic lunch under the trees at a trackside bush camp, while the crew turn the tractor for the downhill run back to De Doorns.

The Kaffrarian Rifles monument is few kilometres further up the line, and Jordaan will take you there if the party is big enough.

It's worth the trip, if only to appreciate the utter stillness of the place with mountains ranked around and a breeze moaning through the grass.