The South African Railways Class 9E, Series 2 of 1982 is an electric locomotive. In 1982 and 1983, the

South African Railways Transnet Freight Rail is a Rail transport in South Africa, South African rail transport company, formerly known as Spoornet. It was part of the South African Railways and Harbours Administration, a state-controlled organisation that employed h ...

expanded its existing Class 9E fleet by placing six new Class 9E, Series 2 General Electric Company electric locomotives with a Co-Co wheel arrangement in service on the Sishen-Saldanha iron ore line.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

The 50 kV AC Class 9E, Series 2 electric locomotive was designed for the

(SAR) by the

General Electric Company The General Electric Company (GEC) was a major British industrial conglomerate involved in consumer and Arms industry, defence electronics, communications, and engineering. It was originally founded in 1886 as G. Binswanger and Company as an e ...

(GEC) and was built by

Union Carriage & Wagon Union Carriage & Wagon (UCW) is a rolling stock manufacturer in South Africa. It presently functions as one of the two South African subsidiaries of the French rolling stock manufacturer Alstom. History Union Carriage & Wagon was established in ...

(UCW) in Nigel,

Transvaal Transvaal is a historical geographic term associated with land north of (''i.e.'', beyond) the Vaal River in South Africa. A number of states and administrative divisions have carried the name ''Transvaal''. * South African Republic (1856–1902; ...

. GEC works numbers were allocated to Class 9E locomotives. UCW delivered six locomotives in 1982 and 1983, numbered in the range from E9026 to E9031.

Characteristics

The locomotive has a single full width air conditioned cab. At the rear end, the body work is lower to provide clearance for the 50 kV AC electrical equipment which is mounted on the roof. This consists of a single pantograph, a potential divider, a vacuum circuit breaker, a surge diverter and the main transformer’s high voltage terminal. The electrical control system is solid state, using thyristors. Since huge voltage drops are often encountered between electric sub-stations, the locomotive was designed to be able to operate on a supply varying between 55 and 25 kV AC. The battery boxes and the main air reservoirs are mounted between the bogies underneath the frame, where a compartment also houses a small motor scooter for use by the crew for lineside inspections of the train, which can be up to nearly long. Series 2 locomotives were delivered with five braking systems; air brakes for the locomotive, train air braking, train vacuum braking, a handbrake and dynamic rheostatic braking which can dissipate . The Series 1 locomotives were delivered without a vacuum brake system. By 2007, the entire fleet of both series of Class 9E electric locomotives were upgraded with

Alstom Alstom SA () is a French multinational rolling stock manufacturer which operates worldwide in rail transport markets. It is active in the fields of passenger transportation, signaling, and locomotives, producing high-speed, suburban, regional ...

's Agate train control and communication technology. The pantographs on most of these locomotives were also replaced by the single arm type.Information supplied by Transnet Freight Rail staff The Series 1 and Series 2 Class 9Es can be visually distinguished from each other by their bogies, which were redesigned for the Series 2 locomotives.

Service

Class 9E locomotives are used on the Sishen-Saldanha iron ore line to haul export ore from the open cast iron mines at Sishen in the

Northern Cape The Northern Cape ( ; ; ) is the largest and most sparsely populated Provinces of South Africa, province of South Africa. It was created in 1994 when the Cape Province was split up. Its capital is Kimberley, South Africa, Kimberley. It includes ...

to the harbour at Saldanha in the

Western Cape The Western Cape ( ; , ) is a provinces of South Africa, province of South Africa, situated on the south-western coast of the country. It is the List of South African provinces by area, fourth largest of the nine provinces with an area of , an ...

. Most of the route is across the hot and dry Northern Cape, but the last to Saldanha runs parallel to the Atlantic coastline and is subjected to the fog and corrosive sea air of the West Coast.

Liveries

The whole series was delivered in the SAR red oxide livery with signal red cowcatchers, yellow whiskers and with the number plates on the sides mounted on three-stripe yellow wings. In the late 1990s they were all repainted in the Spoornet blue livery with either solid or outline numbers on the sides.Soul of A Railway, System 7, Western Transvaal, based in Johannesburg, Part 9. South-Eastwards as far as Volksrust (2nd part) by Les Pivnic. Caption 4.
(Accessed on 11 April 2017)

Illustration

File:SAR Class 9E Series 2 E9026.JPG, No. E9026 in Spoornet blue with solid numbers at Saldanha, 12 September 2007 File:Class 9E Series 2 E9027.JPG, Right side view of no. E9027, Salkor yard, Saldanha, 14 July 2011 File:Class 9E Series 2 E9031.JPG, Rear end view of no. E9031, Salkor yard, Saldanha, 14 July 2011

References

{{General Electric Company plc Cape gauge railway locomotives Co-Co locomotives 3070 GEC locomotives Railway locomotives introduced in 1982 Union Carriage & Wagon locomotives 50 kV AC locomotives