Park station the choice of the people

In 1890, Johannesburg station was a mere halt, called Park. As a halt and therefore of little importance, it consisted of a corrugated iron and wood shelter and ticket office. The important station and terminus of the Rand Tram, 'Johannesburg', was where Braamfontein Station is today. This, the main station, boasted a stationmaster's house, telegraph office and operating office. The locomotive depot, small as it was, had a workshop, stores facility and three lines for shunting. Though it was the government's idea to have the main station at Braamfontein, it was clear from the start that passengers preferred Park Halt, being much closer to the centre of town.

It was so called because it was adjacent to Kruger Park, the sporting grounds of the mining town. After the South African War it was renamed the Wanderers Sporting Grounds.

During the entire NZASM period from 1890 to 1899, 'Johannesburg' in the railway timetables meant the station at Braamfontein. Park Halt was simply called 'Park' or 'Johannesburg Park'. Even in the timetables of the Cape Colony it was called 'Johannesburg Park Station'.

Park, with its various prefixes and suffixes, remained Park until 31 December 1912.

On New Year's Day 1913, the name boards were changed to 'Johannesburg' but for the majority of black people the name never really changed. Even in the eighties, as any booking clerk will testify, a request for a ticket to 'Park' meant Johannesburg Station.

Two years later, in September 1892, the first train from Cape Town, via Germiston (then Elandsfontein), steamed into Park Halt. It was an important event in South African railway history, because this train had won the 'race to the Rand'.

A phenomenal increase in trade and transit passengers to the Rand via any harbour town in Southern Africa, and the concomitant increase in revenue, was the prize. Kruger had tried to delay the linking of railway from harbours in the British colonies, Natal and the Cape, until the NASM-controlled railway between Maputo and Johannesburg had been completed. Due to lack of funds and construction delays in the malarial Lowveld, Kruger had to permit the completion of the rail link between Johannesburg and Cape Town via Bloemfontein in the Orange Free State (OFS, in exchange for British funds to complete the NZASM link with Maputo. It was completed only in November 1894, after the opening of the railway lines between Port Elizabeth and East London. The route to the British port at Durban was inaugurated in December 1894.

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