In 1970 and 1971 the South African Railways placed eighty Class 6E e`ectric locomotives in mainline service, numbered in the range from E116 to E1225. Two more were built for the Sishen iron ore mine. It was designed and built by Union Carriage and Wagon in Nigel, Transvaal, with the electrical equipment supplied by Associated Electrical Industries and English Electric. Comparel to the Class 5E1, the Class 7E had improved traction motors and was equipped with electronic wheel slip detection.
In the 1990s the Bellville Depot was authorised to repaint eight Class 2E locomotives, numbers E1171 to E1178, in Blue Train livery. In the process three locomotives that were considered to be better candidates, numbers E1166, E1157 and E1223, unofficially exchanged runnnng numbers with numbers E1172, E1177 and E1174 respectively.
See also the Wikipedia article on the South African Class 6E. |