The Blue Train Private Charter transforms Africa's most celebrated luxury rail service into an exclusively yours experience — an entire five-star hotel on wheels placed at the disposal of your group, family, corporate delegation, or celebration party. Running on any South African rail network compatible with the Blue Train's advanced technology, a private charter can trace the iconic Pretoria–Cape Town corridor, head north towards the wildlife-rich Lowveld near Kruger National Park, follow the east-coast line to Durban, or wind up to Sun City and the Magaliesberg — the route is shaped entirely around your wishes.
Aboard, nothing changes in terms of the legendary Blue Train standard: gold-plated Italian-marble en-suite bathrooms, 24-hour butler service per suite, award-winning South African cuisine prepared by executive chefs in a custom-designed kitchen, and an observation car framing the passing landscape in panoramic gold-tinted windows. What changes is the exclusivity. Up to 74 overnight guests share a moving world that belongs entirely to them, whether the occasion is a product launch, an incentive journey, a wedding celebration, a safari charter with sunrise game drives, a golf trip, or simply the most extraordinary private journey in southern Africa.
Every charter is tailor-made in partnership with the Blue Train's reservations team. Dining menus, excursions, dress codes, entertainment, and even the onboard conference car configuration can all be customised. For dates, routing options, and a bespoke quotation, contact Palace Trains at 1-800-724-5120 or travel@palacetours.com.
- ✦Entire Blue Train exclusively yours — up to 74 guests, total privacy
- ✦Flexible routing: Pretoria–Cape Town, Kruger safari, Durban, Sun City & beyond
- ✦Guided excursion to Kimberley's Big Hole diamond mine on Cape Town routing
- ✦Sunrise and sunset game drives in Kruger National Park on safari charter
- ✦Dramatic descent through the Hex River Pass into the Cape Winelands
- ✦Victorian village of Matjiesfontein — a perfectly preserved Karoo time capsule
- ✦Fully customisable menus, excursions, entertainment, and conference facilities
Day-by-Day Itinerary
Day 1 — Departure from Pretoria (Irene Station)
Your private charter begins at Irene Station in Centurion, on the southern fringe of Pretoria, where the Blue Train's distinctive cobalt-blue carriages await. Check-in opens at 11:00 AM at a designated pre-departure lounge, where champagne canapés and welcome refreshments set the tone. Boarding begins at 12:45 PM, and your dedicated butler introduces you to your suite — whether the spacious De Luxe suite (4 m × 2 m, with shower or ¾ bathtub) or the grander Luxury suite (5.13 m × 2 m), each fitted with Italian marble, gold-plated fittings, underfloor heating, individually controlled air-conditioning, and goose-down bedding. The train departs at 1:00 PM, gliding south through Johannesburg's suburbs and the open Highveld. A light lunch is served in the dining car or lounge car through the early afternoon, and as the Gauteng skyline fades into endless grass plains, the observation car fills with guests watching the African sky widen. High tea is served at 16:30. The first formal dinner sitting begins at 19:00 — a four-course affair with gourmet cuisine and South African wines; smart attire is required. The second sitting follows at 20:45. By the time you retire, the train is deep in the Karoo darkness, rocking gently southward while your butler makes up your suite with soft lighting and fine custom bedding.
Day 2 — Kimberley Excursion & the Great Karoo
Morning light reveals the vast semi-desert plateau of the Karoo — an oceanic expanse of scrub, kopjes, and burnt-orange earth that stretches to every horizon. Breakfast is served from 7:00 AM. At approximately 10:00 AM, the Blue Train draws into Kimberley Station, and all guests disembark for the highlight excursion of the classic Cape Town routing: a guided visit to the Big Hole and the Kimberley Open Mine Museum. The Big Hole is one of the largest holes excavated by hand in the world — 463 metres wide, 240 metres deep — and it yielded over 2,700 kg of diamonds before closing in 1914. The museum village surrounding it preserves original Victorian colonial buildings: a recreation of the de Beers boardroom, a diamond vault displaying raw and polished stones, a period barber shop, church, and bank. On charter journeys following other routes — Pretoria to Kruger, Durban, or Sun City — the Day 2 excursion is entirely customised: sunrise and sunset game drives with a bush breakfast in Kruger, rounds at a championship golf course, or cultural experiences at your charter destination. Back aboard, staff greet returning guests with drinks and a festive platform send-off. The train departs Kimberley at approximately 12:30 PM. Lunch sittings run through the afternoon, and high tea at 16:30 precedes the second formal dinner. The train climbs through the Northern Cape and into the Western Cape interior overnight, the landscape cooling and greening imperceptibly.
Day 3 — Hex River Valley, Cape Winelands & Arrival in Cape Town
By first light, the Karoo has given way to the extraordinary fynbos-clad mountain ranges of the Western Cape. Breakfast is served from 7:00 AM. The Blue Train descends dramatically through the Hex River Pass — one of the most spectacular rail descents in southern Africa — flanked by rugged sandstone peaks and the vine-quilted floor of the Hex River Valley below. The train pauses briefly at Matjiesfontein, a perfectly preserved Victorian railway village in the Central Karoo where time appears to have stopped: original gas lamps, the Lord Milner Hotel (built 1899 and reputedly one of South Africa's most haunted buildings), a Victorian post office, transport museum, and the lore of the Anglo-Boer War all unfold within a few minutes' walk of the platform. Into the Cape Winelands, the scenery turns lush, with the iconic peaks of the Drakenstein and Wemmershoek ranges rising above rows of grapevines. A light lunch is served from 1:00 PM. The Blue Train arrives at Cape Town's main station between 3:00 and 6:00 PM. Guests are transferred to the Blue Train Lounge — and on charter packages that include it, a complimentary hotel night in Cape Town and a chauffeur transfer to the CBD are provided. Charter groups may alternatively arrange onward transfers to the Cape Peninsula, Cape Winelands tours, or a private game reserve in the Kruger region.
Destinations & Highlights
Pretoria — The Jacaranda City
The charter departs from Pretoria, South Africa's administrative capital, a city of wide avenues lined with some 70,000 jacaranda trees that turn it violet-purple every October and November. Pretoria's landmarks include the grand Union Buildings — the seat of government set on a terraced hillside above the city — the Voortrekker Monument, and the Church Square, flanked by the Palace of Justice where Nelson Mandela stood trial. As a charter start-point, Pretoria's Irene Station (in Centurion) is elegantly convenient, within easy reach of O.R. Tambo International Airport for international arrivals.
Kimberley — City of Diamonds
Kimberley was the epicentre of the world's greatest diamond rush after the first stones were found in the Northern Cape in 1869. Within years it became one of the most cosmopolitan cities in southern Africa, drawing prospectors, speculators, and fortune-hunters from every continent. The Big Hole — a vast open-cast pit excavated largely by hand by some 50,000 diggers — produced more than 14.5 million carats of diamonds before the mine closed in 1914. Today, the Kimberley Open Mine Museum surrounds the flooded crater with a faithfully reconstructed mining-era village, a vault displaying rough and polished diamonds, and immersive exhibitions on the geopolitics and human stories of the diamond age. Cecil John Rhodes built his early fortune here; the Siege of Kimberley during the Anglo-Boer War (1899–1900) left deep marks on the city's architecture and memory.
Matjiesfontein — Victorian Time Capsule
Barely more than a water stop on the Cape Midlands line, Matjiesfontein is one of South Africa's most astonishing anachronisms: a perfectly intact late-Victorian village in the heart of the semi-arid Karoo. It was developed in the 1880s by Scottish entrepreneur James Logan, who recognised the dry Karoo air as restorative. The centrepiece Lord Milner Hotel, built in 1899 and named for the British High Commissioner during the Anglo-Boer War, retains its original broekie-lace façade and period furnishings. The village's double-decker bus, original Victorian post office, transport museum, and cricket pitch survive unchanged — making it one of South Africa's National Monuments and a hauntingly evocative five-minute stop on the Blue Train's westward run.
Cape Town & the Hex River Valley Approach
The final hours of the Pretoria–Cape Town journey deliver arguably its most spectacular scenery: the train descends through the Hex River Pass and Valley, a glacial gorge of vertiginous sandstone cliffs and South Africa's largest table-grape-growing region, before emerging into the Cape Winelands proper — Paarl, Wellington, and the wide Franschhoek and Stellenbosch valleys. Cape Town itself needs little introduction: the iconic flat-topped Table Mountain, the V&A Waterfront, the Cape Peninsula with its boulder-beach penguins, and the world-class wine estates of Constantia and Stellenbosch are all within easy reach, making Cape Town a natural extension of any Blue Train private charter.