The last scheduled steam train in Africa ended its final journey yesterday after flooding and landslides made it too expensive to run.

The Outeniqua Choo-Tjoe, which uses British-made locomotives and attracts thousands of British steam fans, takes passengers across some of South Africa’s most stunning scenery, in the Garden Route in the Western Cape.However, the rising cost of maintenance along its 42-mile route from George to Mossel Bay has become too expensive for its state-run owner, Transnet. It will carry out maintenance on the line next week but unless a new financial partner comes on board no regular steam trains will run again on the line.

The closure will bring an end to a proud tradition of regular steam passenger trains on the continent where Cecil Rhodes once had grandiose plans to construct a Cape to Cairo railway at the height of Empire.

Chris Janisch, at the Heritage Rail Association of South Africa, said: “It’s tragic for steam fans and tragic for tourism. The Outeniqua Choo-Tjoe attracts thousands of tourists who spend a lot of money.

“It’s not just the railway — it’s the guest houses, restaurants and other companies which rely on tourist money. I’ve been in touch with some British enthusiasts and they said they’d be really sorry to see it close.”

The Outeniqua Choo-Tjoe has operated to a daily timetable in summer and a shortened one in winter, and has been used by some people in the area as a regular train service.

Its two-hour route hugs the Indian Ocean coastline, criss-crossing lagoons and rivers and climbing hillsides overlooking rolling countryside. It was opened in 1907 and an extension to Knysna — an area which boasts particularly breathtaking scenery — was added 21 years later. It carries about 115,000 passengers a year, two thirds of them tourists. The service is named after the nearby Outeniqua mountains.

It has an average speed of 30mph but has to revert to diesel locomotives in summer, when there is a risk that hot ashes from the steam trains’ boilers may cause fires on the veld. Four Class 19D steam trains are used to pull five coaches, all of which were built in Glasgow and assembled in South Africa in the early part of the 20th century.

Alan Winde, from the provincial government, has been trying to secure private funding to keep the train running and says that he is optimistic — but admits there is no money from public budgets. “The train is an icon and you need to have icons in a tourist market. My greatest concern is that the longer we leave it, the harder it will get it up and running again,” he said.

The train has not made the trip from George to Knysna since 2006, when serious flooding caused widespread mudslides and made the track impassable without an estimated £5 million of work.

Ian Pretorius, a steam enthusiast who runs Atlantic Rail in Cape Town, said: “There is the skill in South Africa but we need the funding. Transnet will not be running trains anymore so we need to find someone who does.”

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