South African Class 5E1, Series 2 - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

In 1963 and 1964 the South African Railways placed one hundred and thirty Class 5E1, Series 2 electric locomotives with a Bo-Bo wheel arrangement in service. These were the first electric locomotives to be built in South Africa

South Africa

The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

in quantity.

Manufacturer

Series 2 of the Metropolitan-Vickers

Metropolitan-Vickers

Metropolitan-Vickers, Metrovick, or Metrovicks, was a British heavy electrical engineering company of the early-to-mid 20th century formerly known as British Westinghouse. Highly diversified, they were particularly well known for their industrial electrical equipment such as generators, steam...

(Metrovick) designed Class 5E1 3 kV DC electric locomotive was 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

Associated Electrical Industries

Associated Electrical Industries was a British holding company formed in 1928 through the merger of the British Thomson-Houston Company and Metropolitan-Vickers electrical engineering companies...

(AEI). Number E591, the first in the series, was handed over to the SAR in January 1963 as the first main line electric locomotive constructed in South Africa.

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

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.

Class 5E1 series

The South African Class 5E1 was produced in five series, the Metrovick built Series 1 and the UCW built Series 2 to 5. Between 1959 and 1969 altogether six hundred and ninety of them were built, one hundred and thirty-five Series 1, one hundred and thirty Series 2, one hundred Series 3, one hundred Series 4 and two hundred and twenty-five Series 5.

With the exception of Series 2 and 3, the series distinction between Class 5E1 locomotives was based on the different model traction motors each was equipped with, MV 281 in Series 1, AEI 281 AZX in Series 2 and 3, AEI 281 AX in Series 4 and AEI 281 BX in Series 5. The distinction between series 2 and 3 locomotives appears to have been based only on the grounds of being built on different orders.

Legacy

The Class 5E1 continued the prototype of what eventually became the most prolific locomotive type to ever run on South African rails. The type commenced with the Class 5E in 1955 and continued with the Class 6E and the Class 6E1 from 1969 to 1985, and still later with the rebuilding of Class 6E1s to Class 18Es, a project that started in 2000.

Service

The Class 5E1 served on all 3 kV DC electrified main lines country wide for almost forty years, but by the early 2000s the Series 2 locomotives were all retired. After withdrawal from SAR service, fifteen of the Series 2 locomotives were sold to the Middelburg, Transvaal, mines of the Ingwe Coal Corporation, where three were later scrapped and the rest renumbered 5401 to 5412.

The Ingwe locomotives were E607, E609, E617, E630, E649, E650, E655, E661, E669, E670, E673, E675, E678, E681 and E696.

Liveries