Our Story
Its South African origin
1930: Bentley vs The Blue Train
The Inspiration
In March 1930, on a yacht in the Côte d'Azur (French Riviera), a Parisienne lovely asked Le Mans 24-Hour race winning heartthrob Woolf Barnato if he would be taking the le train Bleu back to Calais. “I’m in a hurry” he replied, “I’m taking my Bentley.” The race was on. If the exchange on the boat is spurious, the contest between the Bentley and the Blue Train is most certainly not. So, who won? See the link below for a full account of the event. Hint: It was not the train.
that he used to race le Train Bleu in 1930. The car is now restored and is very collectible.
The Bentley Story
The lifespan of Bentley Motors was short-lived: 1919 to 1931. Yet in that dozen years, Bentley’s cars won “Le Mans” an astonishing five times. How did a tiny British outfit fund the black hole that is endurance racing against the top international racing teams of the day? The answer lies not in a black hole, but a big hole. In fact, in the biggest man-made hole in the world. All the way down in South Africa.
The Bentley Barnato Connection
In 1873, on a whim, burlesque entertainer, and prize-fighter ‘Barney’ Barnato left London’s East End to follow his brother Henry on a steamship to join the so-called “diamond rush” in one of the Empire’s backwater colonies, South Africa.
Wagoning it up from Cape Town to the mining camp ‘Kimberley,’ Barnato started speculating in mining claims – for which he found he had a precocious talent, and which was more lucrative than the selling of cigars to jubilant miners.
Incredibly, by the age of 37 Barney Barnato was a major shareholder in Cecil Rhodes’ De Beers Consolidated Mines in the “Witwatersrand”, where all that glistens was indeed gold. He had become one of the richest men in the world.
But, at 46, Barney Barnato’s luck ran out.
On his way to London to attend Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee (!), in circumstances still not settled by historians, the millionaire was lost overboard. Was he nudged over the railing by his (thieving) nephew?
Back in England, the main beneficiary of the immense Barnato fortune was his youngest son – two-year-old Woolf, who must also have inherited his late father’s ambition and sporting genes. Unspoiled by his massive windfall, Woolf became an outstanding boxer, tennis player, and swimmer. And a talented racing driver.
Meanwhile, another young Englishman was making his mark. Using the £8,000 he got from the ‘Commission of Awards to Inventors’, after his work in aero engines in the Great War, he founded his own motor-car company. “To build a fast car, a good car, the best in its class,” proclaimed Walter Owen “W.O.” Bentley, as he liked to be called.
Woolf Barnato saw that the Bentley engine design, with its three-litre overhead camshaft, four valves per cylinder and twin spark plugs engine was something special. In 1924 he bought a chassis from Bentley Motors and had a “boattail” racing body fitted. (In those days manufacturers of luxury cars built only the bare chassis. Coachbuilders then built the body to suit.)
In his new speed machine, Woolf won races and even set a class record at the fabled Brooklands oval.
Barney Barnato
Whose hallowed place in automotive lore he would never know.
1851-1897
In 1924 Bentley Motors won the most prestigious motor race in the world – 24 Heures du Mans, in France. Overnight, Bentley’s small brick factory was the toast of the town. Woolf Barnato wasted no time in taking delivery of his second Bentley chassis – this time bodied for high society London life; the Town Tattle all a-twitter with his new purchase. But with their racing expenses, it was no secret that Bentley Motors was in financial trouble.
Cometh the hour, cometh the man. The company’s flamboyant new owner was also their new chairman, in more ways than one: Behind the steering wheel. Woolf Barnato fast became the team’s star racing driver. In three attempts – in 1928, 1929, and in 1930 – he won the 24 Hours of Le Mans three times. Said W.O.: “The best driver we ever had and, I consider, the best British driver of his day. One who never made a mistake and always obeyed orders.”
Back to Bentley versus the Blue Train
A race we now know started not in Monte Carlo, France, in 1930, but rather in the deep and dusty mining camp of Kimberley, in South Africa, in 1873.
Here is a beautifully written account of Woolf Barnato and his race against le Train Bleu.
Established in 2016
The Great Train Race
Dawn at the Jack Taylor Airfield
In 2016, inspired by the race in 1930 between the Bentley and the Blue Train from Monte Carlo to Calais eighty-five years earlier, “The Great Train Race” originated in Magaliesberg, South Africa – a mountain town three hundred miles east of Kimberley.
At sunrise one September morning in 2016 a group of vintage car enthusiasts from Johannesburg’s Veteran and Vintage Club – all dressed up in period attire – arrived in their ancient automobiles at the Jack Taylor Airfield in Krugersdorp for photographs to be taken amongst some rare vintage aircraft.
The Great Train Race “Convergence Point”
After enjoying a hearty breakfast in the clubhouse, they departed from the airfield and set off for the so-called “Convergence Point” fifteen miles away.
So called because at that particular piece of geography the road to Magaliesberg (some thirty miles west of Johannesburg) meets the railway line to that town, upon which a steam train was heading, an hour away, thundering towards the throwback cars and their charges. At the Convergence Point, hidden in the bushes was an album of photographers waiting for the great moment to arrive.
And arrive it did.
At the sudden, unmistakable, piercing shriek of the train whistle the still-life rural scene burst into animated life. The drivers of the vintage cars, whose anticipation had long since turned to bored despair as they sauntered about in the fresh country air sprinted to their cars – almost Le-Mans style – and jumped inside, their trembling fingers firing up their engines and revving them mercilessly as they rammed levers into gear so as not to be left behind. The train, as sure as God made little apples, was coming.
Craning their necks, they saw the monstrous black and silver steam machine invade the vacant countryside with its great presence. Said later a participant with a 1918 Cadillac, “When the steam engine appeared next to me, I burst into tears.”
Reliving memories of the Magaliesberg Station
In broken unison for the odd delivery truck on the road, headed by a pukka green 1929 “Speed Six” Bentley, the cavalcade of cars ‘paired’ with the steam train from whose carriage windows a hundred waving arms showed their delirious delight. Out of the blue a yellow Tiger Moth appeared, the cadence of its engine rising and falling in concert with the playful pilot’s aerobatic whims. And like soldiers from wartime emerging from the trenches, khaki-clad lensmen and women arose from the bushes and fired their Canons at the unsuspecting vintage brigade.
After a brief interlude at the derelict Magaliesberg Station the starving entourage motored on to a rural restaurant for lunch where everyone fondly reminisced over the morning’s proceedings as though they were regaling tales from their youth.
With such fun had by all, the event ran again in 2017… and again in 2018.
But by 2019 the capricious railway signalling to Magaliesberg had made that destination impossible for a passenger train required to return to Germiston by sunset.
Reroute: Heidelberg!
Reefsteamers, however, still had a leg that ran to the historic town of Heidelberg – the once-capital of the old Boer Republic – some thirty miles south of Johannesburg. And the neat-as-a-pin Heidelberg Airfield was but a stone’s throw from the solid Heidelberg Railway Station! Could there still be a train race?
There could!
And in 2019, instigated by one Stephen Helm, the vintage motorbikes joined the ‘race Glorious bony specimens, one bohemian wag even sporting a motor tricycle from 1905. The Great Train Race had become a unique dynamic showcase of mankind’s mad machinations to get from A to B. Classic cars up to 1980 (“the last of the chrome”) augmented the bouquet with some modern gleam.
What? A Train Race Without a Train?
With hindsight, 2020 is a year that The Great Train Race did well to survive. By September that year, the Reefsteamers locomotives literally, sadly, finally, run out of steam.
So there was no train.
Except that there was. In the form of a static vintage locomotive display piece at the Heidelberg Museum. If the participants were to drive past the mechanical statue, that would constitute a “train race”, right?
The loyal and long-suffering participants pretended to fall for it. And, once they got to the open airfield, not even the covid calamity could mask their delight at having a lovely day out under the fresh South African sky. That year some of the best photographs were taken.
But there was a cloud. The event knew that it could pull the static stint once, but not twice. A “Great Train Race” with no train at some point would start to raise polite eyebrows.
Was 2020 the end of the line for the moving mechanical menagerie?
Back on Track: Rovos Rail to the Rescue
In desperation, a letter was penned to Rohan Vos, the legendary owner of Rovos Rail, based in Pretoria, considered one of the best vintage railway companies in the world.
Incredibly, Rovos Rail said not just yes, but that they would help out by dedicating three days of steam train heaven to the event. Adding awesomeness to ambience, the bespoke rail company would even be setting up their own luxury tent at the Heidelberg Airfield.
Can you believe it.
For the first time, The Great Train Race would be able to schedule the locomotive’s arrival at the station to the minute: Rovos Rail, cleverly, would leave Pretoria the day before the event.
The pristine Heidelberg station platform was wide enough for the vintage cars and motorcycles to drive and ride right alongside the slow-moving train. At last, the lens men and women would be able to obtain perfect pictures of each machine as it passed by the glorious steam engine.
Talk about the best laid plans of mice and men.
What the event did not anticipate was that the Rovos Rail locomotive was a veritable pied piper. As the dream steam machine and its coterie of quaint carriages appeared over the bridge, from nowhere a gazillion people swarmed the station platform, mobile phones aloft, all wanting to capture the moment. The photographic professionals literally had to take what they could get.
At the platform, in a final snort of steam, the locomotive came to rest. In a scene from a child’s storybook, the station turned into a carnival. Surrounded by vintage cars that had long since resigned themselves to being stuck on the platform rather than driving through, Rohan Vos himself could be seen bustling between the enchanted invaders, the rail maestro very much loving the moment too.
What a Find! Hidden Gem of Heidelberg Town
Finally able to escape the platform, the vintage cars and motorcycles did a quick tour through the historical town (although many got lost… oogrol…) then connived their way to the Heidelberg Airfield. Sorted!
Now with Rovos Rail to impress, local denizen Van Zyl Schultz had upped the organizational ante, transforming the bare airfield into a fairground attraction: Swings and roundabouts for kids, a beer tent, a vibrant live band, gin bar, vintage train rides the little ‘uns and (in 2023) pukka solid frame pre-war motorcycle racing on a makeshift dirt track conspired to create a great spectacle and provide something for everyone from far and wide to see or do.
With a score of vintage aircraft for everyone to inspect, right up close. Oh, and as a treat from the Airfield, the surprise arrival of a squadron of vintage aircraft that patterned the sky with a mesmerizing display of aerial theatrics.
Veritable Vintage Traction
Together with the partnership of Rovos Rail, the Heidelberg Airfield, the event’s loyal and priceless sponsors and your participation as a visitor, The Great Train Race has become a moving tribute to the machinery of yesteryear that helped shape the world in which we live today. For better or for worse.
To be a part of history, stake your claim to the 2024 Great Train Race (Heidelberg, Gauteng) by booking your ticket here.
Period attire, please. Whoever said one should not live in the past?
Christopher Van
April 2024
(Founder: The Great Train Race)