South African Class 6E1, Series 6

The South African Railways Class 6E1, Series 6 of 1976 is an electric locomotive.

In 1976 and 1977, the South African Railways placed one hundred Class 6E1, Series 6 electric locomotives with a Bo-Bo wheel arrangement in mainline service.^[1]

Manufacturer

The 3 kV DC Class 6E1, Series 6 electric locomotive was designed and built for the South African Railways (SAR) by Union Carriage and Wagon (UCW) in Nigel, Transvaal. The electrical equipment was supplied by the General Electric Company (GEC).^[2]

One hundred locomotives were delivered in 1976 and 1977, numbered in the range from E1646 to E1745. UCW did not allocate builder’s numbers to the locomotives it built for the SAR and used the SAR unit numbers for their record keeping.^[1]

Characteristics

Bogies

Series 2 to 11 bogies

Bogie frame and wheels

The Class 6E1 was built with sophisticated traction linkages on their bogies. Together with the locomotive's electronic wheel-slip detection system, these traction struts, mounted between the linkages on the bogies and the locomotive body and colloquially referred to as grasshopper legs, ensure the maximum transfer of power to the rails without causing wheel-slip, by reducing the adhesion of the leading bogie and increasing that of the trailing bogie by as much as 15% upon starting off. This feature is controlled by electronic wheel-slip detection devices and an electric weight transfer relay, which reduce the anchor current to the leading bogie by as much as 50A in notches 2 to 16.^[3]

Brakes

The locomotive itself used air brakes, but it was equipped to operate trains with air or vacuum brakes. While hauling a vacuum braked train, the locomotive's air brake system would be disabled and the train would be controlled by using the train brakes alone to slow down and stop. While hauling an air braked train, on the other hand, the locomotive brakes would engage along with the train brakes. While working either type of train downgrade, the locomotive's regenerative braking system would also work in conjunction with the train brakes.^[4]

When the locomotive was stopped, the air brakes on both bogies were applied together. The handbrake or parking brake, located in Cab no. 2, only operated on the unit's last axle, or no. 7 and 8 wheels.^[4]

Orientation

These dual cab locomotives have a roof access ladder on one side only, just to the right of the cab access door. The roof access ladder end is marked as the no. 2 end. A corridor along the centre of the locomotive connects the cabs, which are identical apart from the fact that the handbrake is located in cab 2. A pantograph hook stick is stowed in a tube, mounted below the lower edge of the locomotive body on the roof access ladder side. The locomotive has three small panels along the lower half of the body on the roof access ladder side, and only one panel on the opposite side.^[1]

Series identifying features

Grilles without beading on Series 5 no. E1631

Grilles with beading on Series 6 no. E1672

The Class 6E1 was produced in eleven series over a period of nearly sixteen years. While some Class 6E1 series are visually indistinguishable from their predecessors or successors, some externally visible changes did occur over the years. Series 1 locomotives had their sandboxes mounted on the bogies, while Series 2 to 11 had their sandboxes mounted along the bottom edge of the locomotive body, with the sandbox lids fitting into recesses in the body.^[1]

The Series 6 and Series 7 locomotives are visually indistinguishable from each other, but can be distinguished from all the older series models by the rainwater beading which was added above the small grilles on the sides, just to the right of the side doors.^[1][3]

Service

The Class 6E1 family saw service all over both of the 3 kV DC mainline and branchline networks, the smaller Cape Western network between Cape Town and Beaufort West and the larger network which covers portions of the Northern Cape, the Free State, Natal, Gauteng, North West Province and Mpumalanga.^[5]

Reclassification and rebuilding

Reclassification to Class 16E

No. E1709 as Class 16E no. 16-422B, Germiston, 6 December 1991

During 1990 and 1991, Spoornet semi-permanently coupled several pairs of otherwise largely unmodified Class 6E1 locomotives, reclassified them to Class 16E and allocated a single locomotive number to each pair, with the individual locomotives in the pairs inscribed "A" or "B". The aim was to accomplish savings on cab maintenance by coupling the locomotives at their no. 1 ends, abandoning the no. 1 end cabs in terms of maintenance and using only the no. 2 end cabs. Most pairs were later either disbanded, with the locomotives reverting to Class 6E1 and regaining their original numbers, or getting rebuilt to Class 18E.^[5]

Eleven known Series 6 locomotives were part of such Class 16E pairs.^[5]

• E1653 became 16-420A.
• E1699 and E1700 became 16-425 A and B.
• E1669 and E1709 became 16-422 A and B.
• E1684 and E1701 became 16-427 A and B.
• E1718 and E1720 became 16-428 A and B.
• E1679 and E1714 became 16-429 A and B.

Rebuilding to Class 18E

Cab 1 of Class 18E no. 18-611, ex Class 6E1 no. E1677, Warrenton, Northern Cape, 21 May 2013

Beginning in 2000, Spoornet began a project to rebuild Series 2 to 11 Class 6E1 locomotives to Class 18E, Series 1 and Series 2 at the Transnet Rail Engineering (TRE) workshops at Koedoespoort. In the process the cab at the no. 1 end was stripped of all controls and the driver's front and side windows were blanked off to have a toilet installed, thereby forfeiting the locomotive's bi-directional ability.^[5][6]

Since the driving cab's noise level had to be below 85 decibels, cab 2 was selected as the Class 18E driving cab, primarily based on its lower noise level compared to cab 1, which is closer and more exposed to the compressor's noise and vibration. Another factor was the closer proximity of cab 2 to the low voltage switch panel. The fact that the handbrake was located in cab 2, was not a deciding factor, but was considered an additional benefit.^[6]

The known Class 6E1, Series 6 locomotives which were used in this project, were rebuilt to Class 18E, Series 1 as well as Series 2 locomotives. Their numbers and renumbering details are listed in the table.^[6]

Illustration

All the Class 6E1, Series 6 locomotives were delivered in the SAR Gulf Red and yellow whiskers livery. The main picture shows no. E1708 in the Spoornet lined orange livery, passing through Kaalfontein on 8 October 2009. Illustrated below are some of the other liveries in which Series 6 locomotives served.

• 
  No. E1664 in SAR Gulf Red & whiskers at Beaconsfield, 17 September 2009
• 
  No. E1682 in Spoornet orange at Capital Park, Pretoria, 20 August 2007

• 
  No. E1733 in Spoornet's maroon livery at Capital Park, Pretoria, 5 October 2009
• 
  No. E1666 in PRASA’s Shosholoza Meyl livery, Beaufort West, 15 September 2015
• 
  No. E1667 in PRASA’s backdrop blue livery at Laingsburg, 11 October 2015

References

External video link

External video

E1653, E1265 and E1682 enter the Capital Park yard on their way to the loco depot, 1 October 2009 (46 seconds)

Wikimedia Commons has media related to South African Class 6E1 Series 6 and Class 18E rebuilt from Class 6E1 Series 6.

Locomotives of South Africa
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Electric	Amcoal Class E38 SAR Class ES SAR Class ES1 SAR Class Exp-AC SAR Class 1E SAR Class 2E SAR Class 3E SAR Class 4E SAR Class 5E s1 SAR Class 5E s2 SAR Class 5E s3 SAR Class 5E1 s1 SAR Class 5E1 s2 SAR Class 5E1 s3 SAR Class 5E1 s4 SAR Class 5E1 s5 SAR Class 6E SAR Class 6E1 s1 SAR Class 6E1 s2 SAR Class 6E1 s3 SAR Class 6E1 s4 SAR Class 6E1 s5 SAR Class 6E1 s6 SAR Class 6E1 s7 SAR Class 6E1 s8 SAR Class 6E1 s9 SAR Class 6E1 s10 SAR Class 6E1 s11 SAR Class 7E SAR Class 7E1 SAR Class 7E2 s1 SAR Class 7E2 s2 SAR Class 7E3 s1 SAR Class 7E3 s2 Spoornet Class 7E4 SAR Class 8E SAR Class 9E s1 SAR Class 9E s2 SAR Class 10E SAR Class 10E1 s1 Spoornet Class 10E1 s2 SAR Class 10E2 SAR Class 11E SAR Class 12E Spoornet Class 14E Spoornet Class 14E1 TFR Class 15E Spoornet Class 16E Spoornet Class 17E Spoornet Class 18E s1 TFR Class 18E s2 TFR Class 19E TFR Class 20E TFR Class 21E TFR Class 22E
Gas-electric	SAR Gas-electric
Diesel	3' 6" gauge Diesel-electric PRASA Class Afro 4000 SAR Class DS SAR Class DS1 SAR Class 31-000 SAR Class 32-000 SAR Class 32-200 SAR Class 33-000 SAR Class 33-200 SAR Class 33-400 SAR Class 34-000 SAR Class 34-200 SAR Class 34-400 SAR Class 34-500 SAR Class 34-600 SAR Class 34-800 SAR Class 34-900 SAR Class 35-000 SAR Class 35-200 SAR Class 35-400 SAR Class 35-600 TFR Class 35-800 SAR Class 36-000 SAR Class 36-200 SAR Class 37-000 Spoornet Class 39-000 TFR Class 39-200 TFR Class 43-000 TFR Class 44-000 2' gauge Diesel-electric SAR Class 91-000 3' 6" gauge Diesel-hydraulic SAR Class 61-000 3' 6" gauge Electro-diesel Spoornet Class 38-000
List of South African locomotive classes South African locomotive numbering and classification