False Bay, ZA
Travel aboard a steam train from Cape Town to visit the bustling Elgin Railway Market with a return train ticket. Make the most of your free time here, enjoying local food, craft vendors, and live music.
Cancel up to 24 hours in advance for a full refund
English, Afrikaans
This 160 km round-trip by rail takes you east from Cape Town to Somerset West, over the 473m high Sir Lowrys Pass, affording majestic views over False Bay and the surrounding mountains, and finally into the Elgin Valley. The Elgin Valley, being synonymous with apples, is one of the most intensively farmed districts in Southern Africa, producing 60% of the national apple crop (of which 40% is exported annually).
Guests spend their time on the train doing what they enjoy best, whether mingling in the bar, reading a book, taking in the sights, catching up with family, or closing their eyes and letting their senses take them back to another place in time.
Arriving at the Elgin Railway Market, guests can choose from food stalls offering everything from fragrant curries, Mediterranean cuisine, healthy Vegan salads, spicy chicken, Neapolitan pizzas, ribs and burgers, exotic Dim Sum, Mexican Nachos, delicious fresh juices, tasty biltong, fall off the bone lamb, and fresh Thai. Sweets treats are also plentiful. They include home-made fudge, ice-cream, handmade chocolate, and to finish off, a great selection of cakes. The bar serves local wines, beer and cider. L-Gin, from Elgin artisanal gin bar serves up local craft gins.
The train then departs back to Cape Town with guest relaxing onboard for the return journey.
Return journey to Elgin Railway Market by train
Food and Drinks are not included in the price, but there is a fully licensed bar onboard and food sales.
Passengers are not permitted to bring their own food and drinks aboard the train
No smoking is permitted onboard, but a short stop is taken at 90 minutes into the journey to allow smokers to smoke.
Steam locomotives may be supplemented or replaced with diesel locomotives if operational constraints require it.
Amazing! Once in a life time experience And the crew was so helpful Especially Trevor Kieffer
Excellent outing, Ceres Rail staff were 10 out of 10. Fantastc experience.
It was a great day out, very well organised. The staff on the train were extremely friendly and helpful. A lot of the journey goes through the back of a lot of townships with so much rubbish which is not great but part of our country. Once we started climbing up Sir Lowry's pass the scenery was lovely. The market and food stalls were very good.
GOING ON THIS TRIP WAS LIKE GOING BACK IN TIME, THEY HAD TRAINS LIKE THAT IN MY SCHOOL DAYS, I WAS LIKE A KID IN A SWEET SHOP, CAPPED IT ALL OFF BY A GORGEOUS DAY, THEY EVEN GAVE ME A COMPLIMENTARY DRINK AS IT WAS MY 60TH BIRTHDAY IN 3 DAYS, I WILL DEFINITELY RECOMMEND THIS TRIP TO ANYONE WHO STAYS IN CAPE TOWN.
The train stopped several times on the way there. It took a total of about 5.5 hours by train to the market. 2.5 hours there then 3 hours home. Lots of food - a little smaller market than we thought before. Tried a bottle of wine and ate some food and bought some jewelry. Ok day but did not live up to expectations. There was a bar on the train where we stood for part of the journey home where they played music and it was nice.
The staff was great and very friendly. Our "supervisor" could have been a bit more talkative. There is definitely a lot of history there. Overall, the journey is tough/too long. We were also unlucky enough to be delayed by 2 hours.
The guide was gr8. The steam locomotive broke down which is understandable. Both the diesel locomotives broke down leaving us for about 2 hours stranded. No one could get off the train. The barman was totally rude to the passengers. All the passengers in the bar treid to make it nice under the curcumstances but he just kept on being rude
Not happy at all, almost 13 hour trip because of the train breaking down. Paid a lot of money for this trip, a person expects better. The guide in our coach was extremely rude with me, and I didn't enjoy that. The waiter serving us was totally useless didn't bring our drinks once, had to go and fetch it myself every time, really didn't emjoy this trip that was supposed to be a nice experience for us.
It took 4 hours to get to Elgin and then again 4 hours back. If I knew it is going to take this ling I never would have booked this trip. Leaving Cape Town we were going for the first 1.5hours through the industrial area and the only scenic area was the last hour before we reached Elgin. There isn't much to do on the train and the food being sold on the train is really affordable but not very tasty. Elgin Market is worth a visit and I would have liked to be able to spend more time there than the 2 hours we were given.