South African Class 6E1, Series 11

In 1984 and 1985 the South African Railways placed forty-five Class 6E1, Series 11 electric locomotives with a Bo-Bo wheel arrangement in main line service.^[1]

Manufacturer

The Class 6E1, Series 11 3 kV DC electric locomotive was designed and built for the South African Railways (SAR) by Union Carriage and Wagon (UCW) in Nigel, Transvaal, with the electrical equipment supplied by the General Electric Company (GEC). Forty-five locomotives were delivered in 1984 and 1985, numbered E2141 to E2185. These were the last Class 6E1 locomotives to be built.^[2]

UCW did not allocate builder’s numbers to the locomotives it built for the SAR. While the practice by most other locomotive builders was to allocate builder’s numbers or works numbers to record the locomotives built by them, UCW simply used the SAR running numbers for their record keeping.^[1]

Characteristics

Bogies

To ensure the maximum transfer of power to the rails without causing wheel slip, the Class 6E1 was built with sophisticated traction links between the bogies and the frames and equipped with electronic wheel slip detection. These traction struts and linkages were to become a distinguishing feature of most subsequent South African electric locomotive models.^[3]

Orientation

These dual cab locomotives have a roof access ladder on one side only, just to the right of the cab access door. The roof access ladder end is marked as the number 2 end. A passage along the centre of the locomotive connects the cabs.^[1]

Series identifying features

The Class 6E1 was produced in eleven series over a period of nearly sixteen years, nine hundred and sixty units altogether, all built by UCW. This makes the 6E1 the most numerous single locomotive class ever to have seen service in South Africa and serves as ample proof of a highly successful design.^[1][3]

While some Class 6E1 series are visually indistinguishable from their predecessors or successors, some externally visible changes did occur over the years. Series 2 and all subsequent Class 6E1 series can be distinguished from Series 1 locomotives by their sandboxes that are not mounted on the bogies as before, but along the bottom edge of the locomotive body with the sandbox lids fitting into recesses in the body sides.^[1]

Series 8 and later locomotives can be distinguished from all older models by the large hatch door on each side, below the second small window to the right of the side door on the roof access ladder side, and below the first window immediately to the right of the door on the other side.^[1][3]

The Series 9 to Series 11 locomotives were visually indistinguishable from each other, but could be distinguished from all earlier models by the rainwater drainage holes on their lower sides. These holes were usually covered by so-called buckets, but the covers were omitted on a few locomotives. Further distinctions were the end doors that were recessed into the doorframes on Series 9 to Series 11 locomotives, compared to earlier models that had the end doors flush with the doorframes. In addition, unlike all earlier models, all four doors on Series 9 to Series 11 locomotives had rounded corners.^[4]

Crew access

The Class 5E, 5E1, 6E and early 6E1 locomotives are notoriously difficult to enter since their lever-style door handles are at waist level when standing inside the locomotive, making it impossible to open the door from outside without first climbing up high enough to reach the handle while hanging on to the side handrails with one hand only. Crews therefore often chose to leave the doors ajar when parking and exiting the locomotives.^[5]

The side doors with two interconnected latch handles on the outside that were introduced on the Class 7E1, with one handle mounted near floor level and the other at mid door level, were also introduced on the Class 6E1 beginning with Series 9.^[6]

Service

The Class 6E1 family saw service all over both of the Transnet Freight Rail (TFR) 3 kV DC main line and branch line networks.^[7]

Cape Western network

The smaller network is the Cape Western line between Cape Town and Beaufort West, with the locomotives based at the Bellville Depot in Cape Town. None of the Series 9 to Series 11 locomotives saw service here.^[7]

Northern network

The larger network covers portions of the Northern Cape, the Free State, Natal, Gauteng, North West Province and Mpumalanga, the main routes in this vast area being as follows:^[7]

• From Johannesburg in Gauteng via Kimberley to Hotazel in the Northern Cape.
• From Johannesburg to Bloemfontein in the Free State.
• From Johannesburg to Durban in Natal.
• From Johannesburg via Pretoria in Gauteng and Witbank in Mpumalanga to Komatipoort on the Mozambique border, as well as to Derwent and Roossenekal.
• From Johannesburg via Springs to Witbank.
• From Johannesburg via Coligny to Lichtenburg.
• From Durban in Natal to Empangeni in the north and Port Shepstone in the south.
• From Ermelo to Ogies and Wonderfontein in Mpumalanga.
• From Kroonstad in the Free State via Bethlehem and Ladysmith to Vryheid in Natal.

The electric locomotives allocated to depots within this network were largely pooled and could operate anywhere in the network as required by the Operating Department, but they returned to their home depots for maintenance every twenty-eight days.^[7]

Rebuilding to Class 18E

Beginning in 2000, Spoornet started a project of rebuilding Series 6 to Series 11 Class 6E1 locomotives to Class 18E locomotives at the Koedoespoort Transwerk workshops. In the process the cab at the number 1 end was stripped of all controls in order to have a toilet installed to accommodate female crew, thereby forfeiting the locomotive's bi-directional ability. All forty-five Series 11 locomotives were rebuilt to Class 18E by April 2005.^[8][7]

See also

• South African Class 18E, Series 1
• South African Class 6E1, Series 1
• South African Class 6E1, Series 2
• South African Class 6E1, Series 3
• South African Class 6E1, Series 4
• South African Class 6E1, Series 5
• South African Class 6E1, Series 6
• South African Class 6E1, Series 7
• South African Class 6E1, Series 8
• South African Class 6E1, Series 9
• South African Class 6E1, Series 10
• Electric locomotive numbering and classification
• List of South African locomotive classes

References

1. ^ ^{a b c d e f g} South African Railways Index and Diagrams Electric and Diesel Locomotives, 610mm and 1065mm Gauges, Ref LXD 14/1/100/20, 28 January 1975, as amended
2. ^ "UCW - Electric locomotives". The UCW Partnership. Archived from the original on 12 October 2007. http://web.archive.org/web/20071012023401/http://www.ucw.co.za/pdf/electric_loco.pdf. Retrieved 30 September 2010. 
3. ^ ^{a b c} Paxton, Leith; Bourne, David (1985). Locomotives of the South African Railways (1st ed.). Cape Town: Struik. pp. 128-129. ISBN 0869772112. 
4. ^ 18-118 (ex Series 11 E2182) with recessed end door and rounded door corners
5. ^ E1882 with high mounted door handle
6. ^ 18-130 (ex Series 10 E2090) with two door handles
7. ^ ^{a b c d e} Middleton, John N. (2002). Railways of Southern Africa Locomotive Guide - 2002 (as amended by Combined Amendment List 4, January 2009) (2nd, Dec 2002 ed.). Herts, England: Beyer-Garratt Publications. pp. 49-51. 
8. ^ Information gathered from the rebuild files of individual locomotives at Transnet Rail Engineering’s Koedoespoort shops