Two companies were invited to produce prototypes for the project. One was Electro-Motive Sibanye, a joint venture between the recently established Electro-Motive Diesel and Sibanye Trade and Services, a South African Black Economic Empowerment company which dealt in locomotives and spare parts. The Sibanye venture produced only one locomotive, which was rebuilt from Class no. in 2008 and numbered. The locomotive was tested, but rejected by Transnet, reportedly due to poor quality. Furthermore, when serious tender irregularities came to light, the locomotive rebuilding deal between Transnet and Sibanye was cancelled. Even though it was painted in the redTransnet Freight Rail livery, no. never worked for Transnet. The locomotive did have the distinctive cab roof profile of other locomotives in the EMD family, unlike the completely different rounded cab roof profile of its successful competitor. When the Electro-Motive Sibanye joint venture was dissolved, the locomotive remained in the possession of Sibanye Trade and Services and was renumbered. It was later hired or leased to the Khumani iron ore mine in the Northern Cape, where it was renumbered again to.
Numbers 39-001 to 39-005
The other company was Transwerk, later Transnet Rail Engineering and then Transnet Engineering, who produced five locomotives at its Bloemfontein shops between 2005 and 2008, rebuilt from three wrecked Class and two Class locomotives. These five were tested and approved by Transnet and placed in service between April 2006 and 2009 as the Class, numbered in the range from to. It was intended to produce one hundred Class locomotives, but in spite of the technical success of the TRE part of the project rebuilding was halted after completing five locomotives, allegedly due to higher than anticipated cost. Instead of rebuilding one hundred old locomotives, it was decided to rather continue the program by building fifty new South African Class 39-200| locomotives from imported and locally produced components. This was to take place at the Koedoespoort shops of TRE.
Features
The original Class identity of each Class locomotive can be visually determined by the difference between their left side sills. The three ex Class locomotives have thicker fishbelly-shaped left sills, compared to the thinner straight left sills of the two ex Class locomotives. Improvements over the pre-rebuilt locomotives which were realised in the Class include microprocessor control, 26% more maximum continuous tractive effort and 15% more tractive horse-power, and a Knorr-Bremse electronic brake rack to replace the old pneumatic braking controls.
Works numbers
The original Classes 34-600, 34-800 and 37-000 numbers and works numbers of the Class 39-000 locomotives are listed in the table.
Class 34 or 37-000 No.
Works No.
Class 39-000 No.
34-635
GMSA 101-35
39-001
34-838
GMSA 112-38
39-002
34-674
GMSA 101-74
39-003
34-620
GMSA 101-20
39-004
34-829
GMSA 112-29
39-005
37-010
GMSA 116-10
39-251
Service
The five Class locomotives were initially placed in service on the Pretoria-Komatipoort section of the line to Maputo in Mozambique to work in conjunction with Class locomotives on the heavy grades of the Belfast-Steelpoort section in Mpumalanga. By 2013, once the Class locomotive fleet had also entered service, they were redeployed to the Thabazimbiiron ore line and shedded at Pyramid South.
Illustration
The main picture shows no. at Pyramid South, north of Pretoria, as delivered in Transnet Freight Rail livery. Of the five Class locomotives, only no. was delivered in Spoornet’s blue livery with outline numbers.
