Trans Karoo Express Trans Karoo Express The Trans Karoo Express, or simply Trans Karoo, was a South African express passenger train service which travelled an approximately journey between Johannesburg and Cape Town. It operated daily in each direction, meaning that there were in fact two "Trans Karoos" - they passed each other during the night, heading in opposite directions. The service was operated by Spoornet, the national railway company. The "Trans Karoo" was named from the Great Karoo scrubland, one of the most extensive geographical features of southern Africa, across which the train operated. The route was identical to that operated by the
Karoo plain with Mississippi-like rivers depositing mud from an immense range of mountains to the south. Ancient reptiles and amphibians prospered in the wet forests, and their remains have made the Karoo famous amongst palaeontologists. The first of these Karoo fossils was discovered in 1838 by Scots-born Andrew Geddes Bain at a road cutting near Fort Beaufort. He sent his specimens to the British Museum, where fellow Scotsman Robert Broom recognised the Karoo fossils' mammal-like characteristics in 1897. After the Beaufort period, Southern Africa (still part of Gondwana) became an arid sand desert with only ephemeral rivers and pans. These sands