History:
The recorded history of the South Coast falls into two basic periods: pre- and post-rail. Before the start of the South Coast Railway in 1895 the region was the home of a few Zulu clans that were all too happy to live far away from their more northerly Zululand brothers and sisters. During these times people focused on circumventing the overland transport via establishing shallow draft harbors in some of the South Coast’s river mouths.
After trying this for a while, a decision was made to build a railway. Work started from the Durban Station in 1895. The first stage was to Isipingo, which hosted a large sugar mill. From there they pushed to Umkomaas where the first train with 50 excited passengers arrived in 1897. Next stop, Park Rynie, which they reached in December that same year. Work then ground to a snail’s pace as the construction team was faced with a further 23 river crossings to reach Port Shepstone. By August 1900 they had reached Mtwalume and completed an inland branch line to Umzinto. March 1901 saw them at Mzumbe and on July 26 that same year, 1901, the first train from Durban arrived at Port Shepstone’s north bank terminus on the giant Mzimkulu River.
Where it had taken the construction team six gruelling years to get there, that first train trip took just five hours that were to change the history of the KwaZulu-Natal South Coast forever. |
