South African Class NG9 4-6-0

The South African Class NG9 4-6-0 of 1915 is a South African steam locomotive from the South African Railways era.

During 1915 and 1916 the South African Railways placed six steam locomotives with a 4-6-0 Tenwheeler type wheel arrangement in service on the Langkloof narrow gauge line. When a system of grouping narrow gauge locomotives into classes was eventually introduced somewhere between 1928 and 1930, they were classified as Class NG9.^[2]

Manufacturer

Due to the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the usual British locomotive suppliers were hard pressed to satisfy British requirements at the time, let alone those of other parts of the world. As a result, the South African Railways (SAR) placed an order with the Baldwin Locomotive Works in America In 1915 for six narrow gauge locomotives with a 4-6-0 Tenwheeler type wheel arrangement. The six locomotives were all built by August 1915 and were delivered to the SAR in 1915 and 1916, numbered NG42 to NG47.^[2]

Characteristics

The locomotives were very similar to the Bagnall-built Type B locomotives that were delivered to the Cape Government Railways (CGR) in 1903, except that they were equipped with Walschaerts valve gear. They were erected at the Uitenhage workshops.^[2]

Service

They were placed in service on the Langkloof line between Port Elizabeth and Avontuur in the Eastern Cape, where they all remained in service until 1929, although some were at one time also employed to help out on the line from Kalbaskraal to Saldanha in the Western Cape.^[2]

The first two locomotives, numbers NG42 and NG43, were withdrawn from service in 1929. In that same year numbers NG44 and NG46 were transferred to Upington to work on the branchline to Kakamas. The last remaining one of these locomotives on the Avontuur line, number NG45, was relieved from line work and retained at Humewood Road in Port Elizabeth for yard duties until 1939 when it, too, was transferred to Upington.^[2]

Classification

The system of grouping narrow gauge locomotives into classes was only adopted by the SAR somewhere between 1928 and 1930 and at that point these locomotives were classified as Class NG9.^[1][2]

Angola

Three of the six locomotives, numbers NG44, NG45 and NG46, survived in SAR service until April 1951, when they were sold to the Caminhos de Ferro de Moçâmedes (CFM) of Angola.^[2][3]

They were numbered 111 to 113 on the CFM, apparently not in the same order as their old SAR running numbers, and were placed in service on the Ramal da Chibía, a 600 millimetres (23.6 inches) gauge branchline across 116 kilometres (72 miles) from Sá da Bandeira (now Lubango) to Chiange.^[3]

CF Moçâmedes no. 111 (right) and possibly no. 113 (left), at the Sa da Bandeira shops, Angola, 7 August 1972

This branch was opened in two stages in 1949 and 1953. It is believed the three locomotives also worked on the mainline from Moçâmedes (now Namibe) to Sá da Bandeira, until that line was regauged to Cape gauge in the mid-1950s.^[3]

They were possibly retired at about this time, being replaced on the branchline by 60-Series 0-8-2T locomotives that were released by the regauging of the mainline. In later years these 0-8-2T locomotives were equipped with the NG9 tenders to increase their wood and water carrying capacity.^[3]

The Class NG9 locomotives were observed dumped at the Sá da Bandeira shops by 1969, without their tenders, and at the time appeared as if they had been in that condition for some time. The branchline itself was closed in 1970.^[3]

See also

• List of South African locomotive classes
• Narrow Gauge locomotive numbering and classification
• South African locomotive history
• The 4-6-0 "Tenwheeler"
• Two foot gauge railways in South Africa

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: South African Class NG9 (4-6-0)

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