Garden Route hopes to get 'Choo Tjoe' back on track
Many tourists have albums with images of the Choo Tjoe (pronounced 'choo-choo') - the last regularly scheduled steam train in South Africa, chugging along through its daily 67km journey between Knysna and the Transport Museum in George. The Outeniqua Choo Tjoe carried almost 120,000 passengers a year, but service stopped in August 2006, after floods damaged the tracks.
According to Tammy Evans, spokeswoman for the provincial tourism department, stakeholders are very eager to see The Outeniqua Choo Tjoe resuming service "because it is very important for our heritage and the tourism industry in the area," she says, "[w]e have asked to take it over when it closed. We want the line, and we want the train as well." The cost of reviving the line are estimated at around R200 million - excluding the cost of renovations to the train itself.
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