I was in Jo’burg on business yesterday, it was fun. I got to catch the Gautrain from the airport and back! Boy was I impressed. It was clean, fast and efficient. It was worth flying up there just to catch the train.
My only problem…. the escalators at the Sandton station! Holy cow they have dug a deep hole in the ground. The platform of the station is a long way from the surface and while catching the esculators up you get quite a good idea of how deep. You can see all the way down. Not good when you have a slight fear of heights. I was beginning to get rather stressed near the top. On the way back I thought I would be smart and catch the lift…. That was fine until we started to descend and I realised the doors were glass…. Yikes, I had my eyes shut the whole way down.
Please excuse quality of these photos. I took them from my phone.
I think i need to plan a trip to jhb (who knows why) so that i can experience this gautrain – EVERYBODY is talking about it!
Mrs 6k was also very impressed.
It’s 9 floors from surface to platform, so yes – a fair distance.
Oh I still need to do this!
Wow, that looks so nice! But I’m not sure what you’re saying… is the train elevated? Like on a very high track, not on the ground? Is that it? Cause if that’s it, and if it’s 9 stories high, then yeah, that would be very freaky!!!
Hi Pamela, I am so jealous. I am dying to have a trip on that train and cannot wait for my next business trip to Gauteng and hope that I can use the train, because driving on those freeways is very stressful..
Shayne – it was most definitly the highlight of my trip. Somebody offered to drive me back to the airport and I declined so I could ride the train back again.
6K – no wonder it freaked me a bit.
Cat – Go if you can. I think the stat was something like 100 000 people have taken it with thier families just for fun.
Jennifer, certain parts are above ground, but it does go underground too, the station I got off at was DEEP underground.
Max-e. It makes the trip so much more pleasant.
awesome!