Text / Photo by Peng Ran

Draw a picture in your mind: You and your beloved friends are sitting on a comfortable sofa, drinking champagne, and looking out of the window of an antique train. Outside stretches the vast expanse of African prairie, which turns golden at dusk. Wild animals -- antelopes, giraffes, elephants, rhinos, buffalos and even lions -- step out from the woods to a pond to drink water. Viewed from afar, their distinctive figures are silhouetted against the setting sun.

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This romantic picture used to be a dream of a South African businessman named Rohan Vos, who is such a doer that he managed to open a private railway, Rovos Rail, in South Africa in 1989. Nicknamed "the Pride of Africa", Rovos Rail is now one of the world's top 10 luxurious trains recommended by the American National Geographic.

The old-styled train of Rovos Rail. [Photo: CRIENGLISH.com]

We visited the Capital Park Station, the heart and headquarters of this private railway company in Pretoria, South Africa on a sunny March afternoon. Stepping into the building, I felt like I had stepped back in time. The whole station was built and decorated to recapture the romance and atmosphere of a by-gone era. The furniture in the waiting room look like they are from the antique store. The scene immediately reminded me of the movie "Out of Africa".

Behind the station building are the rails and a locomotive yard. The locomotives and carriages look like antiques too. In fact they are. Rohan Vos and his train-loving friends have collected these abandoned pieces that are nearly a century old from all over the world, and restored them with the standards of a five-star hotel. Now Rovos Rail owns three complete and functional trains to provide world-class travel experiences. By making his own dream come true, Rohan Vos also created the dream tours for other people.

The trains carry a maximum of 72 passengers in 36 superb suites -- the royal suites, the deluxe suites, and the Pullman suites. Each train has Victorian-styled dining cars serving traditional dishes with fresh local ingredient, such as game. On the train there is also a smoking club lounge and an observation car, where the passengers can associate and view the splendid beauty of the African Continent.

We walked through a train before it departed from the station. I felt like I was in an old movie for the whole time. Maybe that was exactly the feeling Rohan Vos would like his guests to have.

Rovos Rail links some of Africa's greatest destinations, not only in South Africa, but also others such as Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, Mpumulanga, Victoria Falls and so on. Passengers can choose from a variety of journeys that last from 24 hours to a fortnight, with themes such as safari, golf and history. To extend their services, Rovos Rail has also purchased some aircrafts to carry passengers to interesting places with no rails. Recently, the company is operating on trial an across-Africa journey that starts from South Africa and ends in Cairo, Egypt.

It is not inexpensive to travel with Rovos Rail, but the busy reservation calls may suggest it is worth the price.