“A Melancholy, Long, Withdrawing Roar”: Railways in the Economy of Southern Africa

On the 26th August 1975, a conference took place aboard a South African Railways (SAR) train halfway across the Victoria Falls Bridge over the Zambezi River. The river was the border between the unrecognised state of Rhodesia (today Zimbabwe) and Zambia. The brokers of the meeting were the South African Prime Minister, BJ Vorster, and his Zambian counterpart Kenneth Kaunda – an unlikely combination, given the hostility among southern African “Frontline” states countries towards the apartheid policies of South Africa. Joining Vorster and Kaunda in the lounge car of the SAR’s presidential “White Train” was the Prime Minister of Rhodesia, Ian Smith.