South African Class 23 4-8-2


The South African Railways Class 23 4-8-2 of 1938 was a steam locomotive.
In 1938 and 1939, the South African Railways placed 136 Class 23 steam locomotives in service. The Class 23 was the last and the largest 4-8-2 Mountain type locomotive to be designed by the South African Railways.

Manufacturers

The Class 23 4-8-2 Mountain type steam locomotive was designed by W.A.J. Day, Chief Mechanical Engineer of the South African Railways from 1936 to 1939. It was intended as a general utility locomotive, capable of operating on rail, and was built in two batches by Berliner Maschinenbau and Henschel and Son in Germany. The original order in 1938 was for twenty locomotives, of which Berliner built seven, numbered in the range from 2552 to 2558, and Henschel thirteen, numbered in the range from 2559 to 2571.
At the time, the urgency brought about by the rapidly deteriorating political climate in Europe led to a further 116 locomotives being ordered even before the first batch could be delivered and tested, contrary to usual SAR practice. Ordering this quantity of a new class of engine before any had been tried out constituted a record for the SAR. Of this second batch, Henschel built 85, numbered in the range from 3201 to 3285, and Berliner 31, numbered in the range from 3286 to 3316. The last locomotive of this second order was delivered in August 1939, just one month before the outbreak of the Second World War.
Berliner-built locomotive no. 3301 received an out-of-sequence works number, Berliner no. 10816 instead of no. 11000, since works number 11000 was reserved for the new Class 01.10 4-6-2 Pacific type locomotive for the German State Railways.

Characteristics

In general appearance and power, the Class 23 locomotive is very similar to the Classes 15E and 15F. As originally designed, the locomotive would have had coupled wheels which would have required a newly designed boiler to accommodate the extra length brought about by the long coupled wheelbase. The increasing political turmoil in Europe and the resulting urgency, however, prohibited time being spent on designing a new boiler. As a result, the existing Watson Standard no. 3B boiler was incorporated in the design with an extra long smokebox which was extended by to partially compensate for the shorter boiler. This boiler was one of the range of standard type boilers which was designed by Day's predecessor as CME, A.G. Watson, as part of the latter's standardisation policy. To maintain approximately the same tractive effort as the Class 15E, the boiler pressure was raised to, at the time the highest yet used on the SAR since the SAR loading gauge did not permit horizontal cylinders of greater bore diameter than with normal cylinder spacing.
The locomotives were delivered without smoke deflectors, but after the war they were fitted with standard elephant ear smoke deflectors based upon the Deutsche Reichsbahn design.
The inner firebox was of steel and was fitted with five diameter arch tubes, which supported the brick arch. The rocking grate, with two drop-grates, was actuated by a steam shaker. As was the practice with Watson Standard boilers, the hopper type ashpan was secured to the main frames instead of to the boiler foundation ring, with a air gap all round. Drench pipes were fitted to facilitate cleaning and the bottom of the ashpan was fitted with a hand-operated sliding door.
To enable them to negotiate radius curves, the leading coupled wheels were given a total side-play in their horn blocks, while the tyre flanges of the intermediate coupled wheels were of reduced thickness and the leading coupling rods were provided with spherical bearings at the knuckle joints and crank pins. In addition, largely also as a result of the decision to use the shorter Watson Standard boiler, it was decided to reduce the coupled wheel diameter from the originally intended to, which shortened the coupled wheelbase and would further ease passage on sharp curves.

Tender

Since these locomotives were intended for working in the Karoo where good quality water is a scarce resource, they were equipped with very large Type EW tenders which rode on six-wheeled bogies to enable longer runs to be undertaken between watering stops or to skip bad watering places. They were the largest tenders to have been used in South Africa up to that time and as originally designed, would have had a water capacity of and a coal capacity of. Owing to axle load restrictions, however, it was necessary to reduce the water capacity to. The first batch of twenty locomotives were delivered with such tenders.
The second batch of 116 locomotives were delivered with a modification to the tender's underframe. To improve the weight distribution, both tender pivot centres were relocated towards the rear. This enabled the water capacity to be increased to on these 116 tenders. While the locomotive-and-tender's length over couplers was not affected, the total wheelbase of the second batch was longer since the distance between the engine's trailing wheel and the first tender wheel was increased from to.
Four vacuum cylinders operated clasp brakes on all tender wheels and a hand brake was included. Since experience showed that a firegrate of cannot be served effectively under all conditions by manual stoking, particularly on long runs, a type H.T-1 mechanical stoker was fitted, supplied by the Standard Stoker Company of America. The mechanical stoker engine was mounted on the tender.

Streamlining

During the 1930s, the streamlining of locomotives was fashionable in Europe and the United States of America. It was proposed to adopt streamlining on some of the Class 23 locomotives which were intended for the Cape mainline and the manufacturers were requested to submit estimates to that effect. Since streamlining would increase the cost by £500 per locomotive and increase the weight by approximately, the idea was abandoned, especially in light of the negligible performance benefit of streamlining at the official maximum goods train speeds on Cape gauge and the reduced accessibility of working parts on a streamlined locomotive.

Locomotive naming

Although the naming of locomotives in South Africa dates back to the Cape Town Railway and Dock Company's 0-4-2 locomotives of 20 March 1860 and the Natal Railway's 0-4-0WT Natal of 13 May 1860, it was rarely done. In 1945, the Minister of Transport at the time, the Honourable F.C. Sturrock MP, instructed that a number of Classes 15F and 23 engines should be named after various South African cities and towns and fitted with suitable nameplates in both official languages. The decorative plates were fitted to the sides of the smokebox or to the elephant ear smoke deflectors of engines which were so equipped. Thirteen Class 23 locomotives were named.
'' nameplate on Class 23 no. 3300, off Class 15F no. 3044
In later years, some of these names migrated to other engines and classes, several eventually ending up on Class 25NC locomotives. Other names were also added later and, for example, by 1969 no. 3229 bore the name Springs.

Service

The new class soon formed the bulk of the motive power on the lines from Touws River to Beaufort West and from De Aar to Welverdiend via Kimberley and Klerksdorp.
When new, a few Class 23s were briefly allocated to Braamfontein to haul the Union Limited and other Cape express passenger trains from Johannesburg, and the Class 16DA and Class 16E were transferred to Bloemfontein. Since the electric turntable at Braamfontein could not accommodate the locomotive and its long Type EW tender, engines coming in from Klerksdorp had to detach at Johannesburg station and run light to India Junction near Germiston to be turned on the triangular junction. The Braamfontein Class 23s were therefore soon transferred to the Cape Northern System and Braamfontein was provided with Class 15Fs that could fit onto its turntable.
Upon the arrival of the new Classes 25 and 25NC in 1953, the Class 23 was transferred to Bloemfontein to work south from there to Noupoort and Burgersdorp. Occasionally they worked north to Kroonstad and west across to Kimberley, but the Class 15F generally did most of that work.
When ore traffic from Postmasburg to Durban began to increase in the late 1950s, caboose-working was instituted c. 1959. Block loads of manganese ore were worked by steam over the route from Postmasburg via Kimberley and Bloemfontein to Kroonstad and four block loads were dispatched from Postmasburg to Maydon Wharf in Durban every 24 hours, seven days per week. Four crews on a pair of Class 23 locomotives with a caboose attached for crew accommodation worked in 21-day cycles out of Bloemfontein. The crews were supposed to work eight hours on and eight hours off, but by agreement they usually worked twelve-hour shifts instead.
Each caboose-working cycle began with the picking up of a string of 34 empty hopper wagons and a guard’s van in Bloemfontein. These were worked through to Postmasburg, with the engines recoaling at Kamfersdam outside Kimberley. At Postmasburg they picked up 34 loaded hopper wagons and a guard’s van, an approximate load of 2,700 tons, and worked all the way through to Kroonstad, where the loads were re-marshalled into 1,500 ton bites for the 1 in 66 grades east of there to Harrismith. At Kroonstad the loaded hoppers were exchanged for empties and the whole cycle repeated. Recoaling points were at Postmasburg, Kamfersdam, Hamilton and Kroonstad and en route rewatering points were at Kloofeind and Glen. It took roughly two days to complete a loaded-empty cycle over the full route and an average of ten cycles were managed on each three-week tour of duty. Caboose-working was always with pairs of Class 23 locomotives, until the Class 25 condensers took over the section from Postmasburg to Kamfers Dam c. 1962 and the practice was discontinued. After electrification of the Postmasburg branch late in 1966, steam only came on at Beaconsfield and crews and engines were once more being changed in the traditional manner at Bloemfontein, Kroonstad and Bethlehem.
Due to metal fatigue cracks which developed in their thick rolled steel bar frames, the Class 23 was withdrawn from mainline service considerably earlier than the similar and contemporary Class 15F. They were all retired by 1983, many of them in the process donating their large Type EW tenders to increase the range of the Class 15F. At least one of these tenders, that of no. 3209, was later rebuilt to a water-only tender.

Works numbers

The table shows the Class 23 engine numbers, builders and works numbers. On the builders' works lists, all the locomotives are recorded as having been built in 1938.

SAR No.		Builder
Works
No.
2552Berliner10738
2553Berliner10739
2554Berliner10740
2555Berliner10741
2556Berliner10742
2557Berliner10743
2558Berliner10744
2559Henschel23742
2560Henschel23743
2561Henschel23744
2562Henschel23745
2563Henschel23746
2564Henschel23747
2565Henschel23748
2566Henschel23749
2567Henschel23750
2568Henschel23751
2569Henschel23752
2570Henschel23753
2571Henschel23754
3201Henschel24155
3202Henschel24156
3203Henschel24157
3204Henschel24158
3205Henschel24159
3206Henschel24160
3207Henschel24161
3208Henschel24162
3209Henschel24163
3210Henschel24164
3211Henschel24165
3212Henschel24166
3213Henschel24167
3214Henschel24168
3215Henschel24169
3216Henschel24170
3217Henschel24171
3218Henschel24172
3219Henschel24173
3220Henschel24174
3221Henschel24175
3222Henschel24176
3223Henschel24177
3224Henschel24178
3225Henschel24179
3226Henschel24180
3227Henschel24181
3228Henschel24182
3229Henschel24183
3230Henschel24184
3231Henschel24185
3232Henschel24186
3233Henschel24187
3234Henschel24188
3235Henschel24189
3236Henschel24190
3237Henschel24191
3238Henschel24192
3239Henschel24193
3240Henschel24194
3241Henschel24195
3242Henschel24196
3243Henschel24197
3244Henschel24198
3245Henschel24199
3246Henschel24200
3247Henschel24201
3248Henschel24202
3249Henschel24203
3250Henschel24204
3251Henschel24205
3252Henschel24206
3253Henschel24207
3254Henschel24208
3255Henschel24209
3256Henschel24210
3257Henschel24211
3258Henschel24212
3259Henschel24213
3260Henschel24214
3261Henschel24215
3262Henschel24216
3263Henschel24217
3264Henschel24218
3265Henschel24219
3266Henschel24220
3267Henschel24221
3268Henschel24222
3269Henschel24223
3270Henschel24224
3271Henschel24225
3272Henschel24226
3273Henschel24227
3274Henschel24228
3275Henschel24229
3276Henschel24230
3277Henschel24231
3278Henschel24232
3279Henschel24233
3280Henschel24234
3281Henschel24235
3282Henschel24236
3283Henschel24237
3284Henschel24238
3285Henschel24239
3286Berliner10985
3287Berliner10986
3288Berliner10987
3289Berliner10988
3290Berliner10989
3291Berliner10990
3292Berliner10991
3293Berliner10992
3294Berliner10993
3295Berliner10994
3296Berliner10995
3297Berliner10996
3298Berliner10997
3299Berliner10998
3300Berliner10999
3301Berliner10816
3302Berliner11001
3303Berliner11002
3304Berliner11003
3305Berliner11004
3306Berliner11005
3307Berliner11006
3308Berliner11007
3309Berliner11008
3310Berliner11009
3311Berliner11010
3312Berliner11011
3313Berliner11012
3314Berliner11013
3315Berliner11014
3316Berliner11015

Preservation

Two of these locomotives still exist:
NumberWorks nmrTHF / PrivateLeaselend / OwnerCurrent LocationOutside SOUTH AFRICA?
2556Berliner 10742PrivateTowsrivier Municipality
3300Berliner 10999THFTransnet Heritage FoundationBloemfontein Locomotive Depot

Illustration

The main picture shows Berliner-built no. 2556 which was plinthed next to the High School in Gideon Joubert Park in Touws River on occasion of that Railway town's centenary in 1977. It was officially presented to the town on 24 September 1977 by SAR chief executive Dr. Kobus Loubser.