South African Class 7A 4-8-0

Between 1896 and 1901 the Cape Government Railways placed a second batch of altogether forty-six Class 7 steam locomotives with a 4-8-0 Mastodon wheel arrangement in service on its Midland and Eastern Systems. In 1912, when all but two of them were assimilated into the South African Railways, they were renumbered and reclassified to Class 7A.^[2][5][7]

In 1897 and 1898 eight Cape Class 7 locomotives were also built for the Soudan Military Railway during Kitchener’s military campaign in Sudan.^[1][4]

Manufacturers

Following on the thirty-eight Class 7 locomotives that were placed in service by the Cape Government Railways (CGR) between 1892 and 1893, a second batch of slightly improved Cape Class 7 locomotives were acquired between 1896 and 1901. Outwardly all these locomotives appeared almost identical to the first batch of Class 7 locomotives, but they had increased heating capacity as well as some other modifications. The most noticeable difference lay in their Type ZE tenders that ran on bogies, compared to the three axle Type ZB tenders of the earlier locomotives.^[2]

1896

In 1896 orders were placed for twenty-eight locomotives, distributed between three manufacturers.^[2][4]

• Sharp, Stewart and Company built eight for the Cape Midland System, numbered 385 to 392.
• Dübs and Company built eight for the Cape Eastern System, numbered 718 to 723, 740 and 741.
• Neilson and Company built six for the Cape Midland System, numbered 393 to 398, and another six for the Cape Eastern System, numbered 724 to 729.

1897

In 1897 a further four Class 7 locomotives were ordered by the CGR from Neilson, along with three Class 6 locomotives, for use on the new Vryburg to Bulawayo line of the fledgling Bechuanaland Railway Company (BR). The line was still under construction and was operated by the CGR on behalf of the BR at the time. The Class 7 locomotives, numbered BR 4 to 7, were eventually returned to the CGR and renumbered 347 to 350 for the Cape Midland System.^[2][4]

In 1897 and 1898 Neilson also built eight Cape Class 7 locomotives for the Soudan Military Railway in Sudan, where they were known as the Dongola Class.^[1][4]

1898

In 1898 another ten Class 7 locomotives were taken into service by the CGR, as well as three by the Imvani-Indwe Railway that operated a branch line from Sterkstroom to the Indwe Collieries in the Eastern Cape.^[2]

• Sharp Stewart built one Class 7 for the Imvani-Indwe that was named E.J. Byrne by the colliery. It was eventually taken onto the CGR roster and became the Cape Eastern System’s number 742.
• Dübs built two for the Imvani-Indwe that were named Bradfield and Gardner Williams. They were also eventually taken onto the CGR roster and became the Cape Eastern System’s numbers 743 and 744 respectively.
• At the same time Dübs built ten for the CGR that became the Cape Eastern System’s numbers 730 to 739.

1901

One more Class 7 locomotive was delivered by Dübs in 1901 and became the Cape Eastern System’s number 758.^[4]

Class 7 sub-classes

When all but two of these forty-six locomotives were assimilated into the newly established South African Railways (SAR) in 1912, they were renumbered 988 to 1031 and reclassified to Class 7A. The two exceptions had been sold to Pauling and Company in 1909.^[2][5][6]

The rest of the CGR’s Class 7 locomotives, together with Class 7 locomotives from the Central South African Railways (CSAR), the Pretoria-Pietersburg Railway (PPR), the Rhodesian Railways (RR), the Natal Government Railways (NGR) and, in 1925, the New Cape Central Railways (NCCR), were grouped into six different sub-classes by the SAR, becoming SAR Classes 7 and 7B to 7F.^[3]

Renumberings

During their long service lives some of the Class 7A locomotives underwent more than one renumbering. Five saw service with the Imperial Military Railways (IMR) and were temporarily renumbered accordingly, three were unnumbered but named while in Imvani-Indwe service and all but two were eventually renumbered into the SAR’s roster in 1912. The table lists these renumberings as well as their builders and works numbers.^[2][5][6]

When the four BR locomotives, BR 4 to 7, were eventually returned to CGR service and renumbered 347 to 350 for the Cape Midland System, it resulted in number duplication that confused historians in later years. These four running numbers had been used previously on four of the 1892 and 1893 batch of Class 7 locomotives, also built by Neilson, that had since been renumbered 712 to 715 when they were transferred from the Midland to the Eastern System.^[2][4][5]

Modifications

During the 1930s and later many of the Class 7 series locomotives were equipped with superheated boilers and piston valves. On the Class 7C this conversion was sometimes indicated with an "S" suffix to the class number on the locomotive’s number plates, but on the rest of the Class 7 family this distinction was rarely applied. The superheated versions could be visually identified by the position of the chimney on the smokebox, with the chimney displaced forward to provide space behind it in the smokebox for the superheater header.^[3][7]

In the early 1960s Class 7A 1021 was equipped with a superheater and reclassified to the sole Class 7AS. The number plate was altered by weld-writing a crude "S" after the "7A". This locomotive spent its last working days on the SAR doing steam heating tests on mainline passenger coaches at the Braamfontein North passenger yard in Johannesburg, before being sold to the Zambesi Saw Mills (ZSM) in 1971. The ZSM engineer's records, however, show it as not superheated and having saturated boiler number 7865.

Service

Cape Government Railways

The Class 7 series became the main goods locomotive class for the last twenty years of the existence of the CGR. Of this second batch of the Class, not all began their service lives on the CGR and not all remained with the CGR until the SAR came into existence. In summary:

• Four originally began their service lives on the BR between Vryburg in the Cape Colony and Bulawayo in Southern Rhodesia and were eventually returned to the CGR and renumbered 347 to 350 for the Cape Midland.^[4]
• Four from the 1896 and one from the 1898 batches saw service with the IMR during the Second Freedom War from 1899 to 1902, having been allocated to the IMR for the duration of the war.^[2][4][7]
• Two locomotives, 348 and 398, were sold to Pauling and Company in 1909 for use during the construction of the Rhodesia Katanga Junction Railway (RKJR) in Northern Rhodesia (Zambia). The RKJR purchased them from Paulings in 1910, after which they went to the Mashonaland Railway Company in 1928 and eventually to the RR in 1936. They retained their CGR running numbers for their entire working lives, until they were scrapped by the RR in 1938.^[4]
• The Imvani-Indwe Railway’s three Class 7s were taken onto the CGR roster and numbered 742 to 744 for service on the Eastern System, before the 1912 amalgamation into the SAR.^[2]

South African Railways

In SAR service, the Class 7 series worked on every system in the country. In 1915, during the South West African Campaign in World War I, twenty-nine Class 7 series locomotives were sent to South West Africa (SWA) to assist the expeditionary forces. Eleven of these were Class 7A locomotives, numbers 1000 to 1002, 1005, 1006, 1017, 1019 and 1021 to 1024.^[4][7]

They proved so successful in that territory that more were gradually transferred there in later years. By the time the Class 24 arrived in SWA in 1949, there were still fifty-three Class 7 series locomotives in use there. Most remained there and were only transferred back to South Africa when the Class 32-000 diesel-electric locomotives replaced them in 1961. In South Africa they remained in branch line service, particularly at Tarkastad and Ladysmith and also on the line from Touws River to Ladismith, until they were finally withdrawn in 1972.^[7]

Industrial

Four Class 7A locomotives, numbers 992 and 1006 in 1966 and 993 and 1021 in 1971, as well as two Class 7 and two Class 7B, were sold to the Zambesi Saw Mills (ZSM) in Northern Rhodesia (Zambia). The company worked the teak forests that stretched 100 miles (160 kilometres) to the north-west of Livingstone in Northern Rhodesia and it built one of the longest logging railways in the world to serve its sawmill at Mulobezi. These eight locomotives joined eight ex RR Class 7 locomotives that had been acquired by the ZSM between 1925 and 1956.^[4]

Railway operations ceased at Mulobezi around 1972, whilst operation of the line to Livingstone was taken over by the Zambia Railways in 1973. While most of the Class 7 series locomotives remained at Mulobezi out of use, Class 7A 1021 was installed at the Livingstone factory to supply steam for curing wood.^[8]

Sudan’s Dongola Class

Known as the Dongola Class, Cape Class 7 locomotives were also built for the Soudan Military Railway during Kitchener’s campaign in Sudan. When he arrived in the territory in 1895, he built a railway line, strictly for military purposes, running parallel to the Nile River for nearly 200 miles (322 kilometres) from Wadi Halfa to the Third Cataract at Kerma, and then another line from Wadi Halfa across 571 miles (919 kilometres) through the Nubian Desert to Atbarah and on to Khartoum to the south. For motive power, three Cape Class 7 locomotives, built to the Class 7A design, were ordered from Neilson and delivered in 1897. These were followed by five more in two batches in 1898. They were initially not numbered, but named after places in Sudan.^[1][4]

Their works numbers, order numbers, names and eventual Sudan Railway (SR) numbers are set out in the table. Number 29, which was originally named "Berber" according to Neilson’s records, was later renamed "Fashoda/Suakin".^[1][4]

These locomotives were equipped with gates across the open ends of their cabs and pipes under the running board on the right side that terminated in hose connections below the front buffer beam, so that water tenders could be coupled to the front and they could be run cab forward. The reason was that they were used on a single line being constructed into the desert from Wadi Halfa, initially with no water supply at the far end.^[4]

For some reason these locomotives were not popular in the Sudan and they were all withdrawn from service by 1914.^[4]

Gallery

The main picture shows ex Cape Eastern System Class 7 726, SAR Class 7A 1009, plinthed in Oudtshoorn in the Cape Province.

See also

• South African Class 7 4-8-0
• South African Class 7B 4-8-0
• South African Class 7C 4-8-0
• South African Class 7D 4-8-0
• South African Class 7E 4-8-0
• South African Class 7F 4-8-0
• Tender locomotive numbering and classification
• The 4-8-0 "Mastodon"
• List of South African locomotive classes

References

1. ^ ^{a b c d e f} Neilson, Reid works list, compiled by Austrian locomotive historian Bernhard Schmeiser
2. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l} Holland, D.F. (1971). Steam Locomotives of the South African Railways, Volume 1: 1859-1910 (1st ed.). Newton Abbott, Devon: David & Charles. pp. 41-44, 83. ISBN 0715353829. 
3. ^ ^{a b c} South African Railways and Harbours Locomotive Diagram Book, 2’0” & 3’6” Gauge Steam Locomotives, 15 August 1941, as amended
4. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p} Pattison, R.G. (1997). The Cape Seventh Class Locomotives (1st ed.). Kenilworth, Cape Town: The Railway History Group. pp. 7-10, 22-24, 38-39, 48-50. ISBN 0958400946. 
5. ^ ^{a b c d e} Classification of S.A.R. Engines with Renumbering Lists, issued by the Chief Mechanical Engineer’s Office, Pretoria, January 1912, pp. 8, 12, 15, 38-39 (Reprinted in April 1987 by SATS Museum, R.3125-6/9/11-1000)
6. ^ ^{a b c} Holland, D.F. (1972). Steam Locomotives of the South African Railways, Volume 2: 1910-1955 (1st ed.). Newton Abbott, Devon: David & Charles. p. 139. ISBN 0715354272. 
7. ^ ^{a b c d e f} Paxton, Leith; Bourne, David (1985). Locomotives of the South African Railways (1st ed.). Cape Town: Struik. pp. 46-48. ISBN 0869772112. 
8. ^ Pattison, R.G. (2005). Thundering Smoke, (1st ed.). Sable Publishing House. p42-48. ISBN 0-9549488-1-5