Before well maintained and reliable access roads had been developed, narrow gauge railways were used extensively by South African farmers to move produce from their large farms to central sorting and packing points on their own land.

As a result, entrepreneurial business people created linking railways to transport the produce from the sorting and packing points to the coastal ports.

[1] The route of the Alfred County Railway had some curves of 45 metres (147.6 ft), but with gradients of up to 3 in 100 / 3% (ruling grade of 1 in 37 / 2.7% for 20 miles or 32 kilometres after leaving the coast[2]), the NG4s and their replacements were often double-headed to haul the diverse freight traffic of wood, sugar cane and bananas to Port Shepstone.

The line's management decided against purchasing more powerful articulated Garratt locomotives, because their longer wheelbase would make access to the sugar cane fields more difficult.

In reality, SAR/Transnet still owned the line, infrastructure and the stock as a nationally strategic asset; while the new Port Shepstone and Alfred County Railway (PSACR) was granted an operational and maintenance lease for a period of 199 years.

This was driven by the operations of Kulu Lime and the Natal Portland Cement, plus pulpwood, poplar logs (for matchwood), creosoted telegraph poles, and manufactured wooden items from Harding.

North bound inland traffic was general cargo for the farmers, such as maize, fertilizer, salt, cement, farm implements and water tanks and small parcels.

As a result, Spoornet began to lose general freight traffic, and PSACR's reliance on trans-shipment increased transport times and costs.

[6] The railway began a gradual decline, eventually failing in 2001 when it lost the key Port Shepstone "Narrow Arrow" wood pulping contract, due to unreliability problems resulting from labour relation issues at Spoornet.

[7][8][9] After the termination of the PSACR lease, Patons Country Narrow Gauge Railway (PCNGR) was granted a temporary permit to continue running the Banana Express, from Port Shepstone to Paddock.

The train then veered inland and chugged up through banana plantations and cane fields towards Izotsha, passed through lush sub-tropical native forests and rondavel-dotted hillsides, before stopping in Paddock for lunch and then the direct return journey.