indwe magazine – May 2005

Trains, Planes and
Entrepreneurial Spirit
Text: Sam Weber
Image: © Rovos Rail
“An entrepreneur tends to bite off a little more than he can chew, hoping he’ll learn quickly how to chew it.” – Roy Ash
Entrepreneurs, like artists, are a strange breed. They frequently have magnificent obsessions that few others understand. They dream visions beyond the imagination of others. Projects that are regarded by most other people of sane mind as sheer folly, infuse them with a sense of purpose. They thrive on risk. They are not afraid to fail. They have boundless energy. Hard work is par for the course. They are temperamental and demanding. They are persistent – some would say to the point of obstinacy. They act independently of the goodwill of others. Every so often, they succeed spectacularly.
While all the above are general statements that individually may or may not hold true of Rohan Vos, a few things are clear in the opinion of this writer: Rovos Rail was a magnificent obsession that succeeded spectacularly through the hard work, faith and dogged persistence of its founder, Rohan Vos.
Imagine what it must have been like, nineteen years ago when Vos first obtained permission to operate on the South African Railway system... This was the century of impatience, bullet trains and supersonic travel, the century that saw the coining of the term ‘fast forward’. In a time when the thrust of business was to make everything faster and more disposable, Vos dreamed of steam engines and restored carriages. Nowhere in the world existed a train service that could compare to the luxury of Vos’s vision. Bank managers were aghast, refusing to lend capital despite Vos’s proven track record as an astute businessman. The odds were stacked against him. Vos was on his own with his dream.
At the time, Rohan Vos had already established himself as a successful businessman in the motor spares industry. As a youngster, fresh out of school, he had started out as an encyclopaedia salesman in Johannensburg – a hard learning school indeed. Going from door to door taught him about dealing with unfriendly homeowners and their hostile dogs, but most of all, it taught him to have faith in himself and never to give up.
With this sales experience and a natural aptitude for things mechanical, the young Vos soon took up a position with Grosvenor Motors in Johannesburg. There he landed in the Spares Department where he distinguished himself and shortly was offered a better position in Witbank. With his career on track and a bright future ahead of him, the entrepreneurial spirit was nevertheless making its presence felt in Vos. He was destined for something more.
It was in Witbank that he spotted a gap in the market – after hours spares sales. There was nothing like it in the area at the time. Vos rented premises from a garage, at that time well outside suburbian Witbank. Before long, he quit his day job, and when a small shopping complex went up opposite the garage to cater for encroaching suburbia, Vos was first to rent a shop. The business grew from strength to strength. More branches followed. So successful had Vos become that he was in a position to buy the shopping complex where he first rented a shop.
For many people, this would have been enough of an accomplishment but Vos was feeling restless. A self-confessed ‘ideas man’, he was casting about for something new. “In 1986 a member of my staff, Phil Acutt, approached me to assist in the formation of a steam-preservation group in Witbank,” remembers Vos. With no previous experience in trains, it was the wide-open space of the group’s meeting place that initially enticed Vos. “I went to a few railway rolling stock auctions and thought it might be fun to have a family caravan consisting of two or three old style carriages. I approached the railways with this proposal in mind and they gave me permission later that year, but the permutations were such that it would have proved far too extravagant for me to run this as a home on wheels for my family. I went back to the railways and asked them to reconsider. They held firm to their pricing structure but did give me permission to sell tickets. And that was how the idea of this commercial vintage train was born,” explains Vos.
From the start, the vision was extraordinary and uncompromising. “I wanted to combine the romance of train travel with accommodation, cuisine and service of the highest standard. Travelling on Rovos Rail is like being in a time warp. We’ve tried to re-create the ambience of an English country club of the early twentieth century but with attention to modern comforts,” says Vos.
The first few years were rocky indeed. Vos talks openly about the difficulties he experienced and the financial havoc that his dedication to Rovos Rail wreaked. “Building the carriages is a practical matter, and having been in the motor-spares business, it wasn’t too difficult for me to overcome the mechanical side. The building of the carriages is perhaps the most fun. Establishing myself in the tourism industry however was not easy, even at the best of times. It was completely foreign to me, and if I have lost any money because of my inexperience in this operation, it has been through my lack of knowledge in the tourism department,” he says.
The fact that four of the locomotives are named after the Vos children is testimony to the personal commitment both Rohan and his wife, Anthea, gave to the project. “The smallest and the oldest, the Class 6 Locomotive, is named after Tiffany – our youngest daughter. Bianca Loco No 2701 – named after our second youngest daughter – was bought from a scrap metal dealer in Johannesburg. The other two were also purchased from scrap metal dealers. Locomotive 2702 ‘Brenda’ and Locomotive 3360 ‘Shaun’ are named after our two eldest children. An interesting coincidence is that one locomotive which we bought in Johannesburg and another in Volksrust ended up having consecutive numbers - 2701 and 2702.The fifth locomotive we eventually restored and launched at our 10-year anniversary party in 1999 is a Class 25NC Locomotive. We did a coal to oil conversion on this loco. She is named after my mother, Marjorie.“
When the operation was still losing money five years later, friends and family joined the fray in urging Vos to let go of this ‘madness’ and return to the Spares business he had proved to be so good at. But Vos was committed and held fast. What kept him going in those difficult times? “Well, the passenger numbers were growing – slowly, but they were growing. And, I suppose, pride played a role as well,” he says with a twinkle in his eye. The turn around came in January 1994 with the introduction of the 48 hour, 1,600 km journey up to Victoria Falls.
True to the entrepreneurial spirit that drives him, Vos has not rested on his laurels in the interim ten years. The Rovos experience now extends to air travel as well. “In April 2001 our two splendid Convair 440 aeroplanes were purchased from an operator in Bolivia and flown by our own crew over the Atlantic Ocean to their new home in South Africa,” says Vos. Restored to the exacting Rovos standard, the aircraft are used to convey train passengers from Pietersburg to Victoria Falls in Zambia on the scheduled Pretoria to Victoria Falls journeys. The aircraft are also available for charter anywhere in Southern Africa.
Future plans are centred around the spectacular stretch of land that the company operates from in Pretoria. Rovos Rail secured a long-term lease over the Capital Park Loco Shed in Pretoria in November 1997. The shed had ceased operations in 1990. “As a railway company, we could indeed not have wished for a better location especially as Capital Park has played such an important part in South African railway history,” says Vos. “It is our aim not only to rebuild the site to a world beating standard, but also to transform it into a working railway museum. Our new headquarters will cater for steam enthusiasts, tourists and local visitors alike. With daily guided tours we aim to interest and educate the public, especially those who have had no previous exposure to the world of trains.”
An eye for opportunity, an appetite for hard work, the ability to make stress work for them, independence, self-confidence, discipline and good judgment – these are all known characteristics of entrepreneurs. Yet, there is still more to the entrepreneurial spirit. From the outside, it seems mysterious, almost mystical, like there is a momentum that some people have an ability for tapping into. Mystery aside, in the cold light of day Rohan Vos can stand proud amongst the tribe of entrepreneurs, Rovos Rail indeed a worthy legacy and today truly ‘the pride of Africa’.
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