The South African Railways Class 5E, Series 3 of 1958 was an electric locomotive. In 1958 and 1959, the South African Railways placed fifty-five Class 5E, Series 3 electric locomotives with a

Bo-Bo B-B and Bo-Bo are the Association of American Railroads (AAR) and British classifications of wheel arrangement for railway locomotives with four axles in two individual bogies. They are equivalent to the B′B′ and Bo′Bo′ classifications in ...

wheel arrangement in mainline service.South African Railways Index and Diagrams Electric and Diesel Locomotives, 610mm and 1065mm Gauges, Ref LXD 14/1/100/20, 28 January 1975, as amended

Manufacturer

Like the

Series 2 Series 2 could refer to: * Apple Watch Series 2, a smart watch by Apple * Aston Martin Lagonda Series 2, the automobile model * Aston Martin V8 Series 2, the automobile model * BMW 2 Series, the automobile model line * GeForce 2 series, line of nV ...

, all the Class 5E, Series 3 locomotives were built for the South African Railways (SAR) by

Vulcan Foundry The Vulcan Foundry Limited was an English locomotive builder sited at Newton-le-Willows, Lancashire (now Merseyside). History The Vulcan Foundry opened in 1832, as Charles Tayleur and Company to produce girders for bridges, switches, crossin ...

(VF), subcontracted by English Electric (EE) who had designed the locomotive and supplied the electric components. They were built in 1958 and entered service in 1958 and 1959, numbered in the range from E536 to E590. The number range of the Series 3 locomotives did not follow directly on that of the Series 2, since the Class 5E1, Series 1 and the Class ES locomotives were allocated most of the numbers in between. Twelve numbers, E499, E513, E514 and those in the range from E527 to E535 were never allocated.

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 except that Cab 2 was where the handbrake was located.

Service

Crews found the Class 5E to give a rough ride, which soon earned it the nickname '. The successor Class 5E1 with its new design bogies gave a smoother ride. Class 5E no

The Class 5E family entered service on the Natal mainline between

Durban Durban ( ) ( zu, eThekwini, from meaning 'the port' also called zu, eZibubulungwini for the mountain range that terminates in the area), nicknamed ''Durbs'',Ishani ChettyCity nicknames in SA and across the worldArticle on ''news24.com'' from ...

and

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a megacity, and is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. According to Dem ...

and eventually served almost country-wide as electrification was completed on more mainlines. In 1960, sixty units of the Class 5E family were allocated to the

Witbank Witbank (), officially Emalahleni, is a city situated on the Highveld of Mpumalanga, South Africa, within the Emalahleni Local Municipality. The name Witbank is Afrikaans for "white ridge", and is named after a white sandstone outcrop where wa ...

section upon completion of its electrification. In December 1961, twelve of them were replaced by Class 32-000 diesel-electric locomotives and transferred to the newly electrified Touws River-

Beaufort West Beaufort West (Afrikaans: ''Beaufort-Wes''; Xhosa: ''eBhofolo'') is a town in the Western Cape province in South Africa. It is the largest town in the arid Great Karoo region, and is known as the "Capital of the Karoo". It forms part of the Beau ...

section. More followed to replace the Class 25 condensers that were being transferred from that section to Beaconsfield in Kimberley at the time.Soul of A Railway, System 7, Western Transvaal, based in Johannesburg, Part 21: Witbank Line by Les Pivnic, Eugene Armer, Peter Stow and Peter Micenko. Caption 10.
(Accessed on 4 May 2017) After withdrawal from service, only one Series 3 locomotive, no. E576, was sold into industrial service. It went to the Driefontein gold mine near

Carletonville Carletonville is a town in Gauteng and the seat of the Merafong City Local Municipality in the West Rand District Municipality in Gauteng, South Africa, just north of the richest gold-mining area in the world. At 3,749 m, Western Deep Levels h ...

where, for an unknown reason, it was given the number plates from Series 2 no. E343 which had also been acquired by Driefontein. Numbers E563 and E590 were transferred to MetroRail, later part of the

Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa The Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (PRASA) is a South African state-owned enterprise responsible for most passenger rail services in the country. History In 1910, as a consequence of the formation of the Union of South Africa, all railway ...

, for use as shunting locomotives at the MetroRail Depot in Salt River, Cape Town. They still survive, staged out of service at Salt River.

Liveries

The locomotives were delivered in a bottle green and yellow whiskers livery with red cowcatchers. Beginning c. 1960, a Gulf Red and yellow whiskers livery gradually replaced the green and yellow. With both liveries, the locomotives all had red cowcatchers except in the Cape Western region, where units based at the Bellville Depot could often be identified by their yellow cowcatchers. Some selected electric and diesel-electric locomotives were painted blue for use with the Blue Train, but without altering the layout of the paint scheme. During the late 1970s numbers E562 to E569 were painted blue with yellow whiskers for use on the Blue Train between

Cape Town Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second largest ...

and

in the Cape Western region. In the early 1990s no. E564 was renumbered E263 to represent a Series 1 locomotive and repainted in SAR green and yellow whiskers for use on tourist excursion trains.

MetroRail METRORail is the light rail system in Houston, Texas (United States). In , the system had a ridership of , or about per weekday as of . METRORail ranks as the second most-traveled light rail system in the Southern United States and the 12th ...

's shunting locomotive no. E590 was later painted in MetroRail's grey and yellow suburban livery.

Preservation

One of the 5E Series 3's is currently preserved in the meantime. *Class 5E E564 incorrectly numbered as Series 1 E263 in preservation this unit is preserved at Bellville Loco Depot.Sandstone Heritage Trust - 2017016 Locomotive status - January 2017.
(Accessed on 8 March 2019)

Works numbers

The EE and VF works numbers of the Class 5E, Series 3 and their known disposal are shown in the table.

Illustration

The main picture shows no. E590 in MetroRail livery, while the rest of the pictures serve to illustrate some of the other liveries in which Series 3 locomotives served. File:SAR Class 5E Series 3 E563.JPG, No. E563 in SAR Blue Train livery, Metro Depot, Salt River, 10 September 2007 Class 5E nos. E590 & E563.jpg, No. E590 in MetroRail livery, Salt River MetroRail Depot, 6 November 2014 File:SAR Class 5E Series 3 E576 (Dries 4).jpg, Driefontein gold mine's no. 4, ex SAR no. E576, Carletonville, 21 January 2009

References

{{Locomotives of South Africa 2800 Bo-Bo locomotives Vulcan Foundry locomotives English Electric locomotives Cape gauge railway locomotives Railway locomotives introduced in 1958 1958 in South Africa