South African Class 33-000

The South African Class 33-000 of 1965 is a South African diesel-electric locomotive from the South African Railways era.

Between June 1965 and January 1966 the South African Railways placed sixty-five Class 33-000 General Electric type U20C diesel-electric locomotives in service.^[2]

Manufacturer

The South African Class 33-000 type GE U20C diesel-electric locomotive was designed and built for the South African Railways (SAR) by General Electric (GE) and imported. Sixty-five of these locomotives were delivered between June 1965 and January 1966, numbered in the range from 33-001 to 33-065.^[2]

Class 33 series

Class 33 consists of three series, the GE-built Classes 33-000 and 33-400 and the General Motors Electro-Motive Division-built Class 33-200. Both these manufacturers also produced locomotives for the subsequent SAR Classes 34, 35 and 36.^[3]

Service

In South Africa

The Class 33-000 was initially used to dieselise the Cape Midlands region. When the Class 34-000 entered service in 1971, the Class 33-000 locomotives were transferred to the Transvaal, and some later to the Cape Western system.^[3]

Most of these locomotives survived in mainline and branchline service well into the twenty-first century, for example on the lines from De Aar to Upington, on the branchline from Worcester to George and in suburban passenger service out of East London. Some were later employed as heavy shunting engines to assemble or unload iron ore trains at the Sishen-Saldanha iron ore route's terminals, until the arrival of the Class 15E in 2010 made more Class 34-000 locomotives available for this task.

Outside South Africa

Between October 1978 and May 1993 Zambia Railways (ZR) hired locomotives to solve it's chronic shortages in motive power, mainly from South Africa but at times also from Zaire, Zimbabwe, the TAZARA Railway and even the Zambian Copper Mines. In Zambia the South African locomotives were mainly used on goods trains between Livingstone and Kitwe, sometimes in tandem with a ZR locomotive and occasionally also on passenger trains.^[4]

Locomotives were selected from a float of engines that were allocated by the Railways for hire to Zambia. The South African fleet in Zambia was never constant since locomotives were continually exchanged as they became due back in South Africa for their three-monthly services.^[4]

The locomotives were initially selected from the Classes 33-400, 35-000 and 35-200, but by December 1989 some Class 33-000 locomotives also began to serve one or more tours of duty in Zambia. The float of Class 33-000 locomotives allocated by the Railways for hire to ZR from time to time included the locomotive numbers as shown in the table below.^[4]

Several still see service with Spoornet Traction, whose locomotives operate in several Southern African countries. A few were leased to Sudan Railways, on long-term as a result of the distance from South Africa, and others were sold to COMILOG in Gabon.^[1]

Number plates

In the SAR era the inner parts of cabside locomotive number plates were often unofficially painted in various colours to identify the depot the locomotive was allocated to. Judging from the flaked paint on the plate in the picture alongside, number 33-014 saw service in several regions over the years.^[2]

Works numbers

The Class 33-000 builder’s works numbers, service in the Zambia Railways leasing pool and known eventual disposition are listed in the table.

Liveries illustrated

The main picture and the following photographs offer views of both sides and ends of the Class 33-000 locomotive as well as two of the liveries that they served in.

• 

  No. 33-044 in SAR Gulf Red and whiskers livery, Bellville Loco, Cape Town, 18 July 2009

• 

  No. 33-030 in Spoornet Traction livery, Bellville Loco, Cape Town, 24 May 2009

See also

• Diesel-electric locomotive numbering and classification
• List of South African locomotive classes
• South African Class 33-200 (GM-EMD)
• South African Class 33-400 (GE)
• South African locomotive history

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: South African Class 33-000

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