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 Supergroup of basaltic lava over the Clarens desert, covering nearly the whole of Southern Africa and other portions of Gondwana.The pile of lava that accumulated over the course of several eruptions was more than 1600 m thick, especially in the east (in present-day Lesotho). This massive lava outpouring brought the Karoo sedimention to an abrupt end. The name Drakensberg group is derived from the fact that this layer forms the uppermost 1400 m of the Great Escarpment on the international border between Lesotho and KwaZulu-Natal, often referred to as "the" Drakensberg (although technically the "Drakensberg" refers to the entire 1000 km