South African Class 6E

In 1970 and 1971 the South African Railways placed eighty Class 6E main line electric locomotives with a Bo-Bo wheel arrangement in service. Two more were built for the Sishen iron ore mine.^[2]

Manufacturer

The Class 6E 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 Associated Electrical Industries (AEI) and English Electric (EE). Eighty locomotives were delivered in 1970 and 1971, numbered E1146 to E1225.^[1][3]

UCW did not allocate builder’s numbers to the locomotives it built for the SAR. While usual 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.^[2]

Sishen mine

In 1970 two Class 6E locomotives were also built new by UCW for Iscor (now Kumba), for use at the Sishen Iron Ore Mine in the Northern Cape. Numbered F221.01 and F221.02, these two were allocated UCW works numbers 6E.58 and 6E.59 respectively.^[1]

Characteristics

Compared to the Class 5E1, the Class 6E had improved traction motors, particularly with regard to the insulation of the windings. This resulted in a continuous power output of 563 kilowatts (755 horsepower) per traction motor and a total continuous power output of 2,252 kilowatts (3,020 horsepower) per locomotive, compared to the 364 kilowatts (488 horsepower) per traction motor and 1,456 kilowatts (1,953 horsepower) total of the Class 5E1.^[4]

To ensure the maximum transfer of power to the rails without causing wheel slip with these more powerful traction motors, the Class 6E was built with carefully designed air bellows between the bogies and the frames and equipped with electronic wheel slip detection.^[4]

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.^[2]

Identifying features

In respect of body dimensions and bogies, the appearance of the Class 6E locomotive is very similar to the last produced Class 5E1, Series 5 locomotives with their squared body corners. The most obvious visual external difference is the replacement of the three small vertically arranged grilles to the right of centre on each side of the Class 5E and Class 5E1 with a larger double grille on the Class 6E.^[2]

Unofficial renumbering

In the SAR and Spoornet eras, when the official liveries were Gulf Red and yellow whiskers for the SAR, and initially orange and later maroon for Spoornet, many selected electric locomotives and some diesel-electrics were painted blue for use with the Blue Train, but without altering the layout of the various paint schemes. Blue Train locomotives were therefore blue with yellow whiskers in the SAR era, blue with the Spoornet logo and "SPOORNET" in Spoornet’s orange era, and blue with the Spoornet logo but without "SPOORNET" in Spoornet’s maroon era. Later, in Spoornet’s blue era, there was no need for a separate Blue Train livery, while in the Transnet Freight Rail (TFR) era the Blue Train, once the pride of the old SAR, was relegated to the very bottom of the railway’s business priority list.^[5][6]

The Cape Western region, hence the CW lettering on electric locomotives allocated to this region, usually had eight electric locomotives in a blue livery on its roster, to be used with the Blue Train when required. When the Cape Western’s Class 5E1s in Blue Train service were withdrawn from main line passenger service during the 1990s, eight Class 6E1, Series 8 locomotives, numbers E1950 to E1957, were painted blue with whiskers for use with the Blue Train. After four of these blue Class 6E1 locomotives were damaged following a collision between two Trans Karoo passenger trains at Gouda, the Bellville Depot was authorised to have eight Class 6E locomotives repainted in Spoornet’s orange era Blue Train livery. The authorisation was given for numbers E1171 to E1178.^[1][4]

In the process three locomotives that were considered to be "better" candidates, numbers E1146, E1157 and E1223, unofficially exchanged running numbers with numbers E1172, E1177 and E1174 respectively. The evidence of the unofficial number change was still visible years later in the slightly different shade of orange around the numbers on the sides of the orange E1146, E1157 and E1223, illustrated below.^[1]

Liveries

The main picture shows number E1168 in the Spoornet orange livery. No Class 6E locomotive ever served in the older SAR blue and whiskers livery for the Blue Train and number E1220, illustrated below, was painted in that livery only after it was scrapped and its shell was converted to a braai facility at the Bellville locomotive depot.^[1]

Gallery

See also

• Electric locomotive numbering and classification
• List of South African locomotive classes

References

1. ^ ^{a b c d e f g} 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. 54, 63. 
2. ^ ^{a b c d e} 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
3. ^ "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. 
4. ^ ^{a b c} Paxton, Leith; Bourne, David (1985). Locomotives of the South African Railways (1st ed.). Cape Town: Struik. pp. 128-129. ISBN 0869772112. 
5. ^ E1973 with blue based on orange livery
6. ^ E1951 with blue based on maroon livery