The name of South Africa’s luxury train linking Pretoria and Cape Town is the Blue Train.
Its origins reach back to 1923, when the Union Express began serving the Johannesburg–Cape Town route. Luxury features expanded over time, including a dining saloon in 1933 and air-conditioned carriages in 1939. After a wartime withdrawal, the service returned in 1946 and adopted the Blue Train name, inspired by its blue-painted steel coaches.
The modern journey covers roughly 1,600 kilometres and typically takes about 27 hours. It is designed as a hotel-on-wheels, with sleeping suites, dining and lounge cars, observation facilities, and highly attentive service. The route crosses South Africa’s interior, including the dramatic Karoo landscape. A common mix-up is Rovos Rail: that is another South African luxury operator, but it is not the train identified by the blue livery or the Pretoria–Cape Town name in this question.