South African Class 6E1, Series 5


The South African Railways Class 6E1, Series 5 of 1974 was an electric locomotive.
Between 1974 and 1976, the South African Railways placed one hundred, electric locomotives with a Bo-Bo wheel arrangement in mainline service. One of them was later withdrawn from revenue service for use as an experimental 25 kV AC locomotive.

Manufacturer

The 3 kV DC Class 6E1, Series 5 electric locomotive was designed and built for the South African Railways by Union Carriage & Wagon in Nigel, Transvaal, with the electrical equipment being supplied by the General Electric Company.
One hundred units were delivered between 1974 and 1976, numbered in the range from E1546 to E1645. Like Series 1 to 4, Series 5 units were equipped with four AEI-283AZ axle-hung traction motors. UCW did not allocate builder's numbers to the locomotives it built for the SAR and used the SAR unit numbers for their record keeping.

Characteristics

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 apart from the fact that the handbrake was located in cab 2. A pantograph hook stick was stowed in a tube mounted below the lower edge of the locomotive body on the roof access ladder side. The units had one square and two rectangular access panels along the lower half of the body on the roof access ladder side, and only square access panel on the opposite side.

Series identifying features

The Class 6E1 was produced in eleven series over a period of nearly sixteen years. While some Class 6E1 series are visually indistinguishable from their predecessors or successors, some externally visible changes did occur over the years.
The Series 3 to Series 5 locomotives were visually indistinguishable from each other, the only externally visible difference being the narrower stirrup middle step below the side doors of the first fifty Series 3 units, those in the number range from E1296 to E1345.
The Series 6 and 7 locomotives are also visually indistinguishable from each other, but can be distinguished from all the older series by the rainwater beading that had been added above the small grilles on the sides aft of the side doors.

Service

The Class 6E1 family saw service all over both 3 kV DC mainline and branch line networks, the smaller Cape Western mainline between Cape Town and Beaufort West and the larger network which covers portions of the Northern Cape, the Free State, Natal, Gauteng, North West and Mpumalanga.

Reclassification and rebuilding

Test bed for 25 kV AC research

One of the Series 5 units, no. E1600, was withdrawn from revenue service in 1978, rebuilt as a test-bed for electrification and reclassified to Class Experimental AC. This was done while the electrification of the four isolated routes was in progress. No. E1600 was never returned to revenue service. The four 25 kV AC routes are:
No. E1600 is set to be preserved for the national collection by the SA Heritage Agency and Transnet Heritage Foundation.

Reclassification to Class 16E

During 1990 and 1991, Spoornet semi-permanently coupled several pairs of otherwise largely unmodified Class 6E1 units, reclassified them to Class 16E and allocated a single locomotive number to each pair, with the individual units in the pairs inscribed "A" or "B". The aim was to accomplish savings on cab maintenance by coupling the units at their no. 1 ends, abandoning the no. 1 end cabs in terms of maintenance and using only the no. 2 end cabs.
Two known Series 5 locomotives, numbers E1549 and E1607, were part of such Class 16E pairs and became Class 16E numbers and 16-335A respectively.

Rebuilding to Class 18E

Beginning in 2000, Spoornet began a project to rebuild Series 2 to 11 Class 6E1 locomotives to Class 18E, Series 1 and Series 2 at the Transnet Rail Engineering workshops at Koedoespoort. In the process, the cab at the no. 1 end was stripped of all controls and the driver's front and side windows were blanked off to have a toilet installed, thereby forfeiting the unit's bi-directional ability.
Since the driving cab's noise level had to be below 85 decibels, cab 2 was selected as the Class 18E driving cab primarily based on its lower noise level compared to cab 1, which is closer and more exposed to the compressor's noise and vibration. Another factor was the closer proximity of cab 2 to the low voltage switch panel. The fact that the handbrake was located in cab 2 was not a deciding factor, but was considered an additional benefit.
The known Class 6E1, Series 5 units which were used in this project were all rebuilt to Class 18E, Series 2 locomotives. Their numbers and renumbering details are shown in the table. This list is virtually complete with only seven unknowns remaining:

Count		6E1
no.		Year
built		18E
no.		18E
series		Year
rebuilt		Notes
1E15461974-7518-72622013
2E15471974-7518-80522014
3E15511974-7518-8372Uncompleted
4E15531974-7518-69822012
5E15541974-7518-8492Uncompleted
6E15561974-7518-8352Uncompleted
7E1557197518-77722013c. 2013
8E1558197518-82822014
9E1560197518-82222014
10E1561197518-66822011
11E1562197518-75522013
12E1563197518-80022014c. 2014
13E1564197518-72722013
14E1566197518-66122011
15E1567197518-70522012
16E1568197518-72322013
17E1569197518-77822013c. 2013
18E1570197518-73422013
19E1571197518-67022012
20E1572197518-75422013
21E1573197518-64222010
22E1575197518-77022013
23E1576197518-69322012
24E1577197518-82322014
25E1578197518-64122010
26E1579197518-82722014
27E1580197518-82022014
28E1581197518-68622012
29E1583197518-82122014
30E1584197518-75622013
31E1585197518-82522014
32E1586197518-81822014
33E1588197518-79422014c. 2014
34E1589197518-76922013
35E1590197518-79222014c. 2014
36E1591197518-81722014
37E1598197518-81922014
38E1594197518-73322013
39E1596197518-8422Uncompleted
40E1602197518-79822014c. 2014
41E1604197518-8302Uncompleted
42E1606197518-81422014
43E1608197518-81522014
44E1609197518-66322011
45E1610197518-71122012
46E1613197518-78922014c. 2014
47E16141975-7618-71522012
48E16151975-7618-80922014
49E16161975-7618-75022013
50E16171975-7618-81322014
51E16201975-7618-73122013
52E1621197618-79522014c. 2014
53E1622197618-71022012
54E1623197618-81622014
55E1624197618-72222012
56E1625197618-71622012
57E1626197618-63922010
58E1627197618-81022014
59E1628197618-64722010
60E1630197618-70322012
61E1631197618-8442Uncompleted
62E1632197618-63722010
63E1633197618-81122014
64E1634197618-69722012
65E1635197618-66422011
66E1637197618-72922013
67E1638197618-71322012
68E1639197618-70922012
69E1640197618-73722013
70E1641197618-70022012
71E1644197618-66222011

Liveries

The whole series was delivered in the SAR Gulf Red livery with signal red cowcatchers, yellow whiskers and with the number plates on the sides mounted on three-stripe yellow wings. In the 1990s many of the Series 5 units began to be repainted in the Spoornet orange livery with a yellow and blue chevron pattern on the cowcatchers. Several later received the Spoornet maroon livery. In the late 1990s at least one was repainted in the Spoornet blue livery with solid numbers and at least four in the Spoornet blue livery with outline numbers. In the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa era after 2008, at least one was repainted in the Shosholoza Meyl purple livery and one in the PRASA light blue livery.

Illustration

The main picture shows no. E1629 in the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa Shosholoza Meyl livery. Illustrated below are some of the other liveries in which Series 5 locomotives served.