Signboard on the 'Rooted in Time' self-drive tour of the Knysna forests in the Garden Route National Park. https://www.sanparks.org/parks/garden_route/

1. Of course The Coffee Pot’s main function was to
transport timber (mostly yellowwood) from
Diepwalle to Knysna, but the 31 km (22 mile) route
was so picturesque that the train became a
popular attraction for tourists and locals alike. If
the weather was good, the passengers would sit on
benches and chairs set up on an open carriage.
The route ran from Knysna to Thesen’s Shop and
Sawmill at Brackenhil; then to Parkes Station at
Veldman’s Pad (where Mrs. Perks, the ‘Forest
Fairy,’ ran a little trading store), and finally to
J.H. Templeman’s sawmill at Templeman Station,
Diepwalle.
The Coffee Pot transported about 28,000 tons of
timber a year, and its rolling stock covered about
349,400 miles in total – all without a single
serious accident.
THECOFFEPOTROUTE A local explains how one could find their way
when the line was still operational:
“To such as I, this line is the lifeline to
civilization, for should I stray but a short
distance down any of the paths into the
forest I would only have those gleaming
metals to promise that I would ever find
my way back to safety. One needs the
instinct of a woodcutter and his
knowledge of the sun and the stars to
find a way through the maze-like
growths of the forest.” Anonymous
A LIFELINE
THROUGH THE
FOREST
“The quickest way to get lost
(in the forest) is to think you
can’t get lost.”
Words of the old people of the forest,
in Dalene Matthee’s book, Dream Forest

2. Tom Kennet was the driver of the The
South Western Railway Co. Ltd.’s Coffee
Pot from the time that the line was
opened in 1907. He was a cheerful man,
and probably the only engine driver in
the world who carried an axe to cut up
trees pushed onto the line by elephants.
He was always ready to stop the train and
wait while his passengers picked flowers
on the wayside, and he liked to point out
particularly beautiful sites and vistas
with a toot on the whistle.
The journey from Knysna to Diepwalle
was always a leisurely one: the train
travelled at a maximum of about 9km
per hour (6m/h).
You didn’t have to wait at the station to
climb aboard. The train’s pace was so
leisurely Mr. Kennet would halt at
unscheduled places too. Once when he
stopped to offer a heavily-burdened
washerwomen a lift, she answered,
“No thank you. I’m in a hurry today!”
driver
of
AND
PASSENGERS
Leighton Julyan remembered it this way:
“The daily schedule for each weekday was
for the train to depart from Knysna at
08:30am and to branch off from The
Siding to Brackenhill where it would
arrive at about 11:00 am and leave ten
minutes later for The Siding from where it
would arrive at Deep Walls at about
1.00 pm. At Deep Walls the locomotive
would be turned around on the three-point
switch and would then return with a
diversion to Brackenhill, arriving in
Knysna at about 5.00pm. Mr. Kennet, the
driver of the train, was a familiar sight at
about 5.30pm in stained overalls and a
very greasy cap, carrying his lunch tin,
walking up to his house near the upper
end of Queen Street.”