The old picture this week features Durban’s Bond Store, which is tied up with Durban railway history. It comes from a blog by Graham Leslie McCallum, titled “Durban’s Historic Railway Stations”.
McCallum writes that the first steam locomotive and train in South Africa operated along a track between the Market Square in Durban and the Point, opening on June 26, 1860.
The Point Railway Station initially consisted of a basic iron shed with a raised siding for the convenience of passengers. This station was where the historic Fort Victoria was located and the latter Custom House. Ships entering the Bay of Natal would anchor along the inner shoreline of the Point, and from here passengers would disembark.
“What was at first a sandy shoreline where passengers were carried ashore by strong Zulu men from longboats, was later developed with projecting wooden wharfage and eventually transformed with the straightened and engineered St Paul’s Wharf.
“The town of Durban was several kilometres away to the north of the bay, and before the railway, passengers and freight had to be transported in carts and wagons through the Point bush along rustic sandy tracks to the plain on which Durban was built.”
The new Point Railway Station and post office was erected on the corner of Point Road (today Mahatma Gandhi) and Southampton in 1900, initially a single storey building with a second storey added. It was declared a National Monument in 1986.
The Bond Store was built in 1911 alongside the station (on Point Road) for the undercover offloading and onloading of grain. This store’s floor space was 5 737m² and had a 50-ton hydraulic lift, allowing railway cars to be lifted to its second floor.
The building was renovated in the 2000s and became offices for the Port. It is not to be confused with the Bond Shed, a renovated conferencing and events venue on the Point at around the corner in Browns Road.