South African Class 5E, Series 2


The South African Railways Class 5E, Series 2 of 1957 was an electric locomotive.
In 1957 and 1958, the South African Railways placed forty-five Class 5E, electric locomotives with a Bo-Bo wheel arrangement in mainline service.

Manufacturer

The 3 kV DC Class 5E, Series 2 electric locomotive was built for the South African Railways by Vulcan Foundry on a sub-contract from English Electric, who had designed the locomotive and supplied the electrical equipment. Forty-five series 2 locomotives were delivered and placed in service in 1957 and 1958, numbered in the range from E319 to E363.
They were delivered in a bottle green livery with red cowcatchers. Yellow lines and whiskers were added later to improve their visibility. Beginning in 1960, a Gulf Red and yellow whiskers livery replaced the green and yellow. Since repainting was only done during major overhauls, some of these units were still working in their original as-delivered plain green livery without yellow whiskers as late as 1963.

Orientation

These dual cab locomotives had a roof access ladder on one side only, just to the right of the cab access door. The roof access ladder end was marked as the no. 2 end. A corridor along the centre of the locomotive connected the cabs, which were identical except that Cab 2 was where the handbrake was located.

Service

According to crews, the Class 5E gave a rough ride, which soon earned it the nickname balstamper. The successor Class 5E1 with its new design bogies gave a smoother ride.
The Class 5E entered service on the Natal mainline between Durban and Johannesburg and eventually served almost country-wide as electrification was completed on more mainlines. In 1960, sixty units of the Class 5E family were allocated to the Witbank section upon completion of its electrification. In December 1961 twelve of them were replaced by Class 32-000 diesel-electric locomotives and transferred to the newly-electrified Touws River-Beaufort West section. More followed to replace the Class 25 condensers that were being transferred from that section to Beaconsfield in Kimberley at the time.
After withdrawal from service, three Class 5E, Series 2 locomotives were sold into industrial service.
The EE and VF works numbers of the Class 5E, Series 2 and their known disposal are listed in the table.

Loco no.		EE works
no.		VF works
no.		Sold
to
E3192421E149
E3202422E150Impala
E3212423E151
E3222424E152
E3232425E153
E3242426E154
E3252427E155
E3262428E156
E3272429E157
E3282430E158
E3292431E159
E3302432E160
E3312433E161
E3322434E162
E3332435E163
E3342436E164
E3352437E165
E3362438E166
E3372439E167
E3382440E168
E3392441E169
E3402442E170
E3412443E171
E3422444E172
E3432445E173Dries
E3442446E174
E3452447E175
E3462448E176
E3472449E177
E3482450E178
E3492451E179
E3502452E180
E3512453E181
E3522454E182
E3532455E183
E3542456E184
E3552457E185
E3562458E186Dries
E3572459E187
E3582460E188
E3592461E189
E3602462E190
E3612463E191
E3622464E192
E3632465E193

Illustration

The main picture shows Series 2 no. E326 and E319 and Series 1 no. E297, departing Touws River heading northeast towards Beaufort West in September 1984. The following pictures show the SAR Gulf Red and the Driefontein gold mine liveries. An overhead view of the locomotive is shown in a picture taken at an accident scene near Olifantsfontein in 1975.