South African Class 5E1, Series 4 - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

In 1965 and 1966 the South African Railways placed one hundred Class 5E1, Series 4 electric locomotives with a Bo-Bo wheel arrangement in service.

Manufacturer

Series 4 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).

UCW did not allocate builder’s numbers to the locomotives it built for the SAR. While usual 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 running 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 commenced in 2000.

Locomotive Number Plates

The traditional number plates on the sides of SAR locomotives, usually cast in brass, are highly sought after by collectors. Unfortunately, this has led to a rhinoceros horn type situation where these plates were illegally removed from many locomotives, eventually culminating in a decision by Spoornet

Spoornet

Transnet Freight Rail is a South African rail transport company, formerly known as Spoornet. It was part of 'South African Railways and Harbours', a state-controlled organisation that employed hundreds of thousands of people for decades from the first half of the 20th century and was widely...

to remove these prized items from all locomotives repainted in newer liveries.

One of the two number plates off E894 now serves as a backing plate to a doorknob at a staff club facility built from two Class 5E1 shells at Sentrarand Depot in Gauteng

Gauteng

Gauteng is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. It was formed from part of the old Transvaal Province after South Africa's first all-race elections on 27 April 1994...

Service

The Class 5E1 served in goods and passenger workings on all 3 kV DC electrified main lines country wide for about forty years, but by circa 2005 the Series 4 locomotives were all retired and scrapped.