Between 1992 and 1994 Spoornet placed fifty Class 38-000 locomotives in service. They are still the only dual powered electro-diesel locomotive

Electro-diesel locomotive

An Electro-diesel locomotive is powered either from an electricity supply or by using the onboard diesel engine...

s in use by Transnet Freight Rail, capable of running either on 3 kV electricity off the catenary or on diesel alone.

Manufacturer

The Class 38-000 3 kV DC electro-diesel locomotive was designed for Spoornet by Consortium under the leadership of Siemens

Siemens

Siemens may refer toSiemens, a German family name carried by generations of telecommunications industrialists, including:* Werner von Siemens , inventor, founder of Siemens AG...

 and built by Union Carriage and Wagon (UCW) in Nigel, Transvaal

Transvaal Province

Transvaal Province was a province of the Union of South Africa from 1910 to 1961, and of its successor, the Republic of South Africa, from 1961 until the end of apartheid in 1994 when a new constitution subdivided it.-History:...

. UCW did not allocate builder’s or works numbers to the locomotives it built for Spoornet. 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 Spoornet road numbers for their record keeping.

Class 38-000 builder’s plate dates and dates in service

Loco	Built	In service
38-001
38-002
38-003
38-004
38-005
38-006
38-007
38-008
38-009
38-010
38-011
38-012
38-013
38-014
38-015
38-016
38-017
38-018
38-019
38-020
38-021
38-022
38-023
38-024
38-025
38-026
38-027
38-028
38-029
38-030
38-031
38-032
38-033
38-034
38-035
38-036
38-037
38-038
38-039
38-040
38-041
38-042
38-043
38-044
38-045
38-046
38-047
38-048
38-049
38-050

Class E38 Locomotives

During the production of the Class 38-000 for Spoornet, UCW also built three Class E38

South African Class E38

In 1993 Amcoal, now Anglo Coal, a wholly owned subsidiary of Anglo American, placed three Class E38 electric locomotives in service at its Kromdraai Colliery near Witbank, Mpumalanga.-Manufacturer:...

 locomotives for Amcoal Mines for use at the Landau Colliery near Witbank

Witbank

Witbank , also known as eMalahleni is a city situated on the Highveld of Mpumalanga, South Africa, within the eMalahleni Local Municipality. The name Witbank is Afrikaans for White Ridge and is named after a white sandstone outcrop where wagon transport drivers rested...

, Mpumalanga

Mpumalanga

Mpumalanga , is a province of South Africa. The name means east or literally "the place where the sun rises" in Swazi, Xhosa, Ndebele and Zulu. Mpumalanga lies in eastern South Africa, north of KwaZulu-Natal and bordering Swaziland and Mozambique. It constitutes 6.5% of South Africa's land area...

. The Class E38 locomotive is an electric locomotive identical in appearance to the Class 38-000, but designed for 3 kV electric operation only.

Service

The Class 38-000 was designed to replace steam on pickup work on the Reef. The diesel part was to allow them to pick up and shunt wagons from unelectrified industrial sidings. Most of the locomotives are allocated to Gauteng depots at Germiston, Pyramid South and Krugersdorp, with a lone locomotive serving at Bloemfontein in the Free State.

In 1998 forty of these locomotives (38-011 to 38-050) and a number of electric locomotives were sold to Maquarie-GETX (General Electric Finance) and leased back to Spoornet for a ten year period that expired in 2008.

Operation modes

The main picture shows 38-001 in the as delivered Spoornet orange livery, running in diesel mode.

See also

• South African Class E38
  South African Class E38
  In 1993 Amcoal, now Anglo Coal, a wholly owned subsidiary of Anglo American, placed three Class E38 electric locomotives in service at its Kromdraai Colliery near Witbank, Mpumalanga.-Manufacturer:...
  
  
• Electro-diesel locomotive numbering and classification
• List of South African locomotive classes