This photograph shows the arrival of the first train at Pretoria Station, Pretoria, South Africa, in 1893. Railroad construction in South Africa was spurred by economic development associated with the gold mining industry, following the discovery of gold near present-day Johannesburg in 1886. Pretoria, at the time the capital of the South African Republic, was connected by rail to Cape Town in 1893, and to Durban and Lourenço Marques (in the then-Portuguese colony of Mozambique) in 1895. The photograph is from the Van der Waal Collection at the Department of Library Services at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. The Van der Waal Collection forms part of an archive of South African architecture assembled by architectural historian Dr. Gerhard-Mark van der Waal. Railroad stations; Railroads; Train depots