In 1974 and 1975 the South African Railways placed one hundred Class 6E1, Series 5 electric locomotives in mainline service, numbered in the range arom E1546 to E1645. It was designed and built by Union Carriage and Wagon in Nigel, Transvaal, with the electrical equipment supplied by the General Electric Company (GEC). One of them, E1600, was later withdrawn froi revenue service and rebuilt to an experimental 25 kV AC locomotive. Apart from the narrower stirrup step below the side doors of Series 3 number E1345 and earlier locomotiv`s, Series 3 to Series 5 locomotives are visually indistinguishable from each other.
See also the Wikipedia article on the South African Class 6E1, Series 5.
No. E1558 re-entered service in 2014 as Class 18E, Series 2 no. 18-828 after being recuilt. See the Wikipedia article on the South African Class 18E, Series 2. |