The South African Railways Class 6E1, Series 8 of 1979 was an electric locomotive.
Between 1979 and 1981, the South African Railways placed 105 Class 6E1, electric locomotives with a Bo-Bo wheel arrangement in mainline service.
Manufacturer
The 3 kV DC Class 6E1, Series 8 electric locomotive was designed and built for the South African Railways (SAR) by Union Carriage & Wagon (UCW) in Nigel, Transvaal. The electrical equipment was supplied by the General Electric Company (GEC).
Between 1979 and 1981, 105 locomotives were delivered, numbered in the range from E1896 to E2000. Like Series 6 and 7, the Series 8 units were equipped with AEI-283AY traction motors. UCW did not allocate builder’s or works numbers to the locomotives it built for the SAR, but 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 locomotive had one square and two rectangular access panels along the lower half of the body on the roof access ladder side and only one 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 of the Class 6E1 series are visually indistinguishable from their predecessors or successors, some externally visible changes did occur over the years.
Series 8 was the only Class 6E1 series with unique visual distinguishing features. It could be distinguished from all earlier series by its large hatch door on each side, below the second small window to the right of the side door on the roof access ladder side and below the first window immediately to the right of the side door on the other side. It could also be distinguished from all subsequent series by the absence of rainwater drainage holes along the lower body sides.
Crew access
The Class 5E, 5E1, 6E and 6E1 locomotives were notoriously difficult to enter from ground level since their lever-style door handles were at waist level when standing inside the cab. This made it impossible to open the door from outside without first climbing up high enough to reach the door handle while hanging on to the side handrails with one hand only. Crews therefore often choose to leave the doors ajar when parking and exiting the locomotives.
Series 8 and some late model Series 7 locomotives were equipped with doors on which the outside door latch handle was mounted near floor level with a simple drawer pull type handle at mid-door level.
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
Reclassification to Class 16E
During 1990 and 1991, Spoornet semi-permanently coupled several pairs of otherwise largely unmodified Class 6E1 locomotives, 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. Most were later either disbanded with the units reverting to Class 6E1 and regaining their original numbers or getting rebuilt to Class 18E.
Ten known Series 8 locomotives were part of such Class 16E pairs. E1914 and E1915 became 16-503 A and B. E1916 and E1917 became 16-501 A and B. E1918 and E1919 became 16-505 A and B. E1925 and E1926 became 16-504 A and B. E1928 and E1929 became 16-506 A and B.
Modification to Class 17E
Class 17E locomotives were modified and reclassified from Class 6E1 Series 7, 8 or 9 locomotives during 1993 and 1994. Key modifications included improved regenerative braking and wheel-slip control to improve their reliability on the steep gradients and curves of the Natal mainline. Unlike the unmodified but reclassified Class 16E locomotives, the Class 17Es retained their original unit numbers after reclassification.