South African Class 6E1, Series 1 - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

In 1969 and 1970 the South African Railways placed twenty Class 6E1, Series 1 electric locomotives with a Bo-Bo wheel arrangement in main line service.

Manufacturer

The Class 6E1, Series 1 3 kV DC electric locomotive was designed and built for the South African Railways (SAR) 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:...

, 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) and English Electric

English Electric

English Electric was a British industrial manufacturer. Founded in 1918, it initially specialised in industrial electric motors and transformers...

(EE). Twenty locomotives were delivered in 1969 and 1970, numbered E1226 to E1245.

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 running numbers for their record keeping.

Bogies

The twenty Series 1 locomotives are identical to the predecessor Class 6E

South African Class 6E

In 1970 and 1971 the South African Railways placed eighty Class 6E main line electric locomotives with a Bo-Bo wheel arrangement in service. Two more were built for the Sishen iron ore mine.-Manufacturer:...

in all respects including traction motors, power, tractive force and body dimensions. The only obvious visual distinguishing feature is the new design bogie

Bogie

A bogie is a wheeled wagon or trolley. In mechanics terms, a bogie is a chassis or framework carrying wheels, attached to a vehicle. It can be fixed in place, as on a cargo truck, mounted on a swivel, as on a railway carriage/car or locomotive, or sprung as in the suspension of a caterpillar...

s with their traction struts and linkages.

To ensure the maximum transfer of power to the rails without causing wheel slip, the Class 6E1 was built with sophisticated traction links between the bogies and the frames and equipped with electronic wheel slip detection. These traction struts and linkages were to become a distinguishing feature of most subsequent South African electric locomotive models.

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 6E1 series identifying features

The South African Class 6E1 was produced in eleven series over a period of nearly sixteen years, nine hundred and sixty units altogether, all built by UCW. This makes the 6E1 the most numerous single locomotive class ever to have seen service in South Africa and serves as ample proof of a highly successful design.

While some Class 6E1 series are visually indistinguishable from their predecessors or successors, some externally visible changes did occur over the years. Like the Class 5, Class 5E1 and Class 6, the Series 1 locomotives had their sand boxes mounted on the bogies, while all the subsequent series Class 6E1s had their sand boxes mounted along the bottom edge of the locomotive body, with the sandbox lids fitting into recesses in the body.

Service

The Class 6E1 family saw service all over both of the Transnet Freight Rail (TFR) 3 kV DC main line and branch line networks.

Cape Western network

The smaller network is the Cape Western line between Cape Town and Beaufort West, with the locomotives based at the Bellville Depot in Cape Town.

Northern network

The larger network covers portions of the Northern Cape, the Free State, Natal, Gauteng, North West Province and Mpumalanga, the main routes in this vast area being as follows:

From Johannesburg in Gauteng via Kimberley to Hotazel in the Northern Cape.
From Johannesburg to Bloemfontein in the Free State.
From Johannesburg to Durban in Natal.
From Johannesburg via Pretoria in Gauteng and Witbank in Mpumalanga to Komatipoort on the Mozambique border, as well as to Derwent and Roossenekal.
From Johannesburg via Springs to Witbank.
From Johannesburg via Coligny to Lichtenburg.
From Durban in Natal to Empangeni in the north and Port Shepstone in the south.
From Ermelo to Ogies and Wonderfontein in Mpumalanga.
From Kroonstad in the Free State via Bethlehem and Ladysmith to Vryheid in Natal.

The electric locomotives allocated to depots within this network are largely pooled and can operate anywhere in the network as required by the Operating Department, but they return to their home depots for maintenance every twenty-eight days.

In 2011 the Class 6E1 began to be withdrawn from the Natal corridor (NatCor) line between Johannesburg and Durban, being replaced with Class 18E

South African Class 18E, Series 1

Beginning in 2000 Spoornet embarked on a program to rebuild Class 6E1, Series 6 to Series 11 locomotives to Class 18E, Series 1 locomotives. Most of the Class 6E1s that had previously been reclassified or modified to Class 16E or Class 17E were rebuilt to Class 18E as well.-Manufacturer:The South...

locomotives.

The coastal sections from Durban to Empangeni in the north and Port Shepstone in the south were dieselised at the end of October 2011, using EMD Class 34

South African Class 34-200

Between October 1971 and March 1972 the South African Railways placed fifty Class 34-200 EMD GT26MC diesel-electric locomotives in service.- Manufacturer :...

and Class 37-000

South African Class 37-000

Between May 1981 and 1982 the South African Railways placed one hundred Class 37-000 EMD GT26M2C diesel-electric locomotives in service. After these locomotives were commissioned, the national carrier was not to invest in new diesel-electric locomotives before 2009, nearly three decades later.-...

locomotives that were displaced by new class 43-000

South African Class 43-000

In January 2011 Transnet Rail Engineering took delivery of the first two of one hundred Class 43-000 type GE C30ACi diesel-electric locomotives for Transnet Freight Rail. A further eight were shipped from the United States of America in April 2011...

diesel-electric locomotives on the line from Mpumalanga to Richards Bay via Swaziland

Swaziland

Swaziland, officially the Kingdom of Swaziland , and sometimes called Ngwane or Swatini, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa, bordered to the north, south and west by South Africa, and to the east by Mozambique...

. The overhead catenary equipment between Stanger and Empangeni and between Kelso and Port Shepstone was to be removed soon after.