Phase 1 1891 to 1926
In Issue 26 of KRUGER MAGAZINE, we featured the history of Phabeni Gate and surroundings. In this issue we look at the first phase (from 1891 to 1926, being the proclamation as a national park) of the history of the Selati Railway Line, especially those sections that ran through the Park. Issue 28 will cover the second phase (from 1926 to 2024).
Introduction
Some readers will remember the early days when the train passed Skukuza and Crocodile Bridge with its typical whistle. Today fifty years since the last train ran through the Park, the key monument of the Selati Railway Line, and likely the most photographed vista in the Park, is the Sabie Bridge at Skukuza. The oldest remaining structure is the old train bridge at Crocodile Bridge, dating from 1893, albeit severely damaged (one pillar and two steel bridge sections missing) by the mega-flood on 7 February 2000. Other visible remains of this line can be seen at Lion Sands Tinga Lodge and the road from Skukuza to Crocodile Bridge — H1-1, S114, S22, H5, S108 and S25 - that originally was largely the service road for this historic line.
During the late s the area roughly comprising the current provinces of Gauteng, North West, Mpumalanga and Limpopo was a separate Boer republic called the South African Republic (or Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek). Then there was the Orange Free State (also Boer), and the British colonies of Natal (today KwaZulu-Natal) and Cape (today Western, Eastern and Northern Cape). In gold was discovered in the Murchison Range and this prompted the ZAR government to obtain approval for a railway line linking the Eastern Line - Pretoria to Maputo (then
