The South African Railways Class 33-400 of 1968 was a South African and Namibian diesel-electric locomotive.
Between 1968 and 1970, the South African Railways placed 115 Class General Electric type U20C diesel-electric locomotives in service. Many of them were transferred to TransNamib, the Namibian Railways, upon South West Africa’s independence on 21 March 1990.
Manufacturer
The Class 33-400 type GE U20C diesel-electric locomotive was designed for the South African Railways (SAR) by General Electric (GE) and built by the South African General Electric-Dorman Long Locomotive Group (SA GE-DL, later Dorbyl). The 115 locomotives were delivered between July 1968 and March 1970, numbered in the range from to .
Class 33 series
The Class 33 consisted of three series, the GE Classes and and the General Motors Electro-Motive Division Class . Both manufacturers also produced locomotives for the subsequent SAR Classes 34, 35 and 36.
The two GE-built Classes were virtually identical in appearance, but could be distinguished from each other by some ventilation openings on their bodywork. The Class 33-000 had press-formed louvre openings in both short hood doors on the right hand side of the nose, while the Class had no opening in either of these doors. Just to the rear of the cab on both sides of the long hood and more or less in line with the cab windows, both models had panels with three ventilation openings. These had two horizontal bars in each opening on the Class and press-formed louvre openings on the Class .
These doors and panels could and sometimes did get swapped between models, either as replacement for damaged items or by chance during overhauls. An example is SCTP no. 1435, sold to the Congolese Company for Transportation and Ports (SCTP), illustrated below, of which the left-side door on the nose had apparently been swapped with that of their Class no. 1436, illustrated alongside.
Service
South African Railways
Upon being commissioned, many of the Class locomotives were placed in service in South West Africa (SWA) while some went to the Mafeking line working out of Johannesburg. Forty-five of them were eventually transferred to TransNamib, the Namibian Railways, upon SWA’s independence on 21 March 1990. They retained their SAR engine numbers on the TransNamib roster, but without the "33-" prefix. Some have since been sold while others have been rebuilt with reconditioned prime movers by TransNamib's workshops in Windhoek and renumbered from no. 501 up.
The two cabside number plates on Class locomotives were not identical. Usually, all the locomotives in a Class would have either Afrikaans or English at the top of all their number plates. On the Class number plates, the inscription was in Afrikaans at the top on the right hand or driver’s side, and in English at the top on the left hand or driver's assistant's side.
In South Africa, most of the Class locomotives survived in mainline and branch line service well into the 21st century, for example on the lines from De Aar to Upington, from Worcester to Voorbaai and on suburban service out of East London. From 2009, some were also employed out of Cape Town on the Overberg line across Sir Lowry's Pass to Caledon and on the Bitterfontein line up the West Coast where they replaced several Classes and locomotives that were leased to private railway operators in several Southern African countries.
Some were employed for a while as heavy shunting engines to assemble or unload iron ore trains at the Sishen-Saldanha iron ore line's terminals until the arrival of the Class in 2011 made more Classes , , and locomotives available for this task.
Zambia
Between October 1978 and May 1993, Zambia Railways (ZR) hired locomotives to solve its chronic shortages in motive power, mainly from South Africa but at times also from Zaire, Zimbabwe, the TAZARA Railway and even the Zambian Copper Mines. In Zambia, the South African locomotives were mainly used on goods trains between Livingstone and Kitwe, sometimes in tandem with a ZR locomotive and occasionally also on passenger trains.
Locomotives were selected from a pool of engines which was allocated by the Railways for hire to Zambia. The South African fleet in Zambia was never constant since locomotives were continually exchanged as they became due back in South Africa for their three-monthly services. The locomotives were initially selected from the Classes , 35-000 and 35-200, but by December 1989 some Class locomotives also began to serve one or more tours of duty in Zambia.