Page 60 - Bulletin 9 2005

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Standard on 14 May 1867 (p.4 col.5) reported: “Saban Joseph's Royal Mail Cart starts
from Central Hotel in Simon’s Town daily at ¼ to 7 am and ¼ past 1 pm, and from

Wynberg Railway Station at ¼ past 9 am and ¼ past 3 pm. Passengers for Simon’s Town
must leave Cape Town by the 3 o’clock train. Booking Office “Hotel de Europe” Plein

Street Cape Town. All parcels safely delivered.”

On 22 June 1867 The Cape Standard reported that Mohammed Saban will start a passenger

cart service as from 27 June leaving from Wynberg Station at 6 am and from Simon’s
Town at 2 pm.

Whether Mohammed Saban’s passenger cart service was in any way connected to Saban

Joseph’s Royal Mail Cart delivery is unknown, but Malay drivers were prominent on the

Royal mail routes and it would only be natural that sooner or later they would own their
own carts and tender for various mail contracts, as well as run private transport.

The Mail-train arrives at Kalk Bay

In the Postmaster-General’s report of 1882 it was noted that the mail post-carts were doing
12 trips weekly, Sunday excepted, from Wynberg to Kalk Bay and Simon’s Town (a

distance of 13 miles). In June 1883 the railhead moved from Wynberg to Kalk Bay and the
post-carts now only travelled between Kalk Bay and Simon’s Town. There were three trips

daily which met and delivered mail to the trains.

On Thursday 7 September 1887 Kalk Bay had the distinction of being the terminus for the

maiden journey of the first railway Travelling Post Office in South Africa. The body and
all the interior fittings were manufactured and assembled in the Salt River railway work-

shops, bar the iron frame and wheels which were imported from England. The journey
between Cape Town and Kalk Bay took 32 minutes and the personnel who travelled the

route included the Postmaster General, Mr. G. W. Aitcheson, as well as other leading

postal and railway officials.