South African Class 6E1, Series 7


The South African Railways Class 6E1, Series 7 of 1977 was an electric locomotive.
Between 1977 and 1979, the South African Railways placed 150 Class 6E1, electric locomotives with a Bo-Bo wheel arrangement in mainline service.

Manufacturer

The 3 kV DC Class 6E1, Series 7 electric locomotive was designed and built for the South African Railways by Union Carriage & Wagon in Nigel, Transvaal. The electrical equipment was supplied by the General Electric Company.
The 150 units were delivered between 1977 and 1979, numbered in the range from E1746 to E1895. Like Series 6, the Series 7 units were equipped with AEI-283AY traction motors. UCW did not allocate builder’s or works numbers to the locomotives it built for the SAR and used the SAR unit numbers for their record keeping.

Characteristics

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 unit connected the cabs which were identical apart from the fact that the handbrake was located in cab 2. A pantograph hook stick was stowed in a tube mounted below the lower edge of the locomotive body on the roof access ladder side. The locomotive had one square and two rectangular access panels along the lower half of the body on the roof access ladder side, and only one square access panel on the opposite side.

Series identifying features

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.
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 that had been added above the small grilles on the sides aft of the side doors. Beginning with Series 8, all subsequent series had a large hatch door on each side to the right of their side doors.

Crew access

The Class 5E, 5E1, 6E and 6E1 locomotives were notoriously difficult to enter from ground level since their lever-style door handles were at waist level when standing inside the cab, making it impossible to open the door from outside without first climbing up high enough to reach the door handle while hanging on to the side handrails with one hand only. Crews therefore often chose to leave the doors ajar when parking and exiting the units.
Late-model Series 7 locomotives were equipped with side doors on which the outside door latch handle was mounted near floor level with a simple drawer pull type handle at mid-door level. Unit no. E1845 and later numbers were observed with such lower mounted door handles. Unit no. E1882 was one observed exception with a high-mounted door handle, although this may have been the result of a door replacement.

Service

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

Reclassification and rebuilding

Reclassification to Class 16E

During 1990 and 1991, Spoornet semi-permanently coupled several pairs of otherwise largely unmodified Class 6E1 units, reclassified them to Class 16E and allocated a single locomotive number to each pair, with the individual units in the pairs inscribed "A" or "B". The aim was to accomplish savings on cab maintenance by coupling the units 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 units reverting to Class 6E1 and regaining their original numbers or getting rebuilt to Class 18E.
Twelve known Series 7 locomotives were part of such Class 16E pairs.
locomotives were modified and reclassified from Class 6E1, Series 7, 8 and 9 locomotives during 1993 and 1994. Key modifications included improved regenerative braking and wheel-slip control to improve their reliability on the steep gradients and curves of the Natal mainline. Unlike the unmodified but reclassified Class 16E locomotives, the Class 17Es retained their original unit numbers after reclassification.
A stumbling block was that the regeneration equipment at many of the sub-stations along the route was unreliable. Since there was no guarantee that another train would be in the same section to absorb the regenerated energy, there was always the risk that line voltage could exceed 4.1 kV which would make either the sub-station or the locomotive trip out. As a result, the subsequently rebuilt Class 18E locomotives were not equipped with regenerative braking.
Fourteen Series 7 units are known to have been modified and reclassified to Class 17E, their numbers being E1749, E1775, E1776, E1777, E1778, E1801, E1803, E1805, E1810, E1822, E1826, E1827, E1832 and E1843. Twelve of them were subsequently rebuilt to Class 18E, the exceptions being numbers E1778 and E1803.

Rebuilding to Class 18E

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 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.
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.
Most of the Class 6E1, Series 7 units which were used in this project were rebuilt to Class 18E, Series 1 locomotives. The known numbers and renumbering details are listed in the table.

Count		6E1
no.		Year
built		18E
no.		18E
series		Year
rebuilt		Notes
1E1746197718-15912004
2E1747197718-14112004
3E1748197718-36612007
4E1749197718-33212007ex 17E
5E1750197718-20612005
6E1751197718-39012008
7E1752197718-20812005
8E1753197718-39912008
9E1755197718-41612009TFR, ex PRASA
10E1756197718-40812009
11E1757197718-52112009
12E1758197718-40712009
13E1759197718-39112008
14E1760197718-38912008
15E1761197718-52012009
16E1762197718-60722009
17E1763197718-51612009
18E1764197718-37712008
19E1765197718-13412004
20E1766197718-39812008
21E1767197718-60322009
22E1768197718-60522010
23E1769197718-13912004
24E1770197718-33512007
25E1771197718-41012009PRASA
26E1772197718-38212008
27E1773197718-52212009
28E1774197718-38512008
29E1775197718-29212006ex 17E
30E1776197718-32612007ex 17E
31E1777197718-28912006ex 17E
32E1779197718-41812009TFR, ex PRASA
33E1780197718-10712003
34E1781197718-51012009
35E1782197718-13712004
36E1783197718-77222013
37E1785197718-16512003
38E1786197718-41712009
39E1787197718-35412008
40E17881977-7818-18712005
41E17891977-7818-36112007
42E17901977-7818-18412005ex 16-407B
43E17911977-7818-60122009
44E17921977-7818-33312007
45E17931977-7818-63322010
46E17941977-7818-51412009
47E17951977-7818-35812007
48E17961977-7818-18812005
49E17971977-7818-23112005
50E17981977-7818-50012009
51E17991977-7818-37912008
52E18001977-7818-69922012
53E18011977-7818-33112007ex 17E
54E18021977-7818-50112009
55E18041977-7818-40312008PRASA
56E18051977-7818-26012006ex 17E
57E18061977-7818-61822010
58E18071977-7818-65422011
59E18081977-7818-50212009
60E18091977-7818-61222009
61E18101977-7818-29412006ex 17E
62E18111977-7818-51212009
63E18121977-7818-64922011
64E18141977-7818-34312007
65E18151977-7818-40112008PRASA
66E18171977-7818-36912007
67E18191977-7818-40212009PRASA
68E18201977-7818-61322010
69E18211977-7818-40912009PRASA
70E18221977-7818-09712003ex 17E
71E18231977-7818-61022010
72E18241977-7818-61522009
73E18251977-7818-52412009
74E18261977-7818-34412007ex 17E
75E18271977-7818-28312006ex 17E
76E18281977-7818-41312008PRASA
77E18291977-7818-40612008PRASA
78E18301977-7818-38712008
79E1831197818-08612003
80E1832197818-30712007ex 17E
81E1833197818-36512007
82E1834197818-43122013PRASA
83E1835197818-28012006
84E1836197818-50512009
85E1837197818-23312005
86E1838197818-31712007
87E1839197818-62522010
88E1840197818-33812007ex 16-409A
89E1841197818-33912007ex 16-409B
90E1842197818-13512004
91E1843197818-27012006ex 17E
92E1844197818-72522013
93E1845197818-62622010
94E1846197818-35912007ex 16-404A
95E1847197818-36012007ex 16-404B
96E1848197818-26412006ex 16-405A
97E1849197818-26512006ex 16-405B
98E1850197818-39212008ex 16-410A
99E1851197818-39312008ex 16-410B
100E1853197818-36812007
101E1854197818-13312004
102E1855197818-77922013c. 2013
103E1856197818-51112009
104E1857197818-41212008PRASA
105E1860197818-13812004
106E1861197818-34212007
107E1862197818-69222012
108E18631978-7918-36312007
109E18641978-7918-36412007
110E18651978-7918-52312009
111E18661978-7918-69122012
112E18671978-7918-73022013
113E18681978-7918-41412008PRASA
114E18691978-7918-70122012
115E18711978-7918-09012003
116E1872197918-39612008
117E1873197918-21312005
118E1874197918-50912009
119E1875197918-35612007
120E1876197918-18312005
121E1877197918-60622009
122E1878197918-19812005
123E1879197918-37412007
124E1880197918-51312009
125E1881197918-31812007
126E1882197918-60922009
127E1883197918-31412007
128E1884197918-61622010
129E1885197918-08012003
130E1886197918-36212007
131E1887197918-62422010
132E1888197918-37012007
133E1889197918-26612006
134E1890197918-63122010
135E1891197918-51512009
136E1892197918-37112007
137E1893197918-16112005
138E1894197918-20512005
139E1895197918-35312007

Liveries

The whole series was delivered in the SAR Gulf Red livery with signal red cowcatchers, yellow whiskers and with the number plates on the sides mounted on three-stripe yellow wings. In the 1990s many of the Series 6 units began to be repainted in the Spoornet orange livery with a yellow and blue chevron pattern on the cowcatchers. Several later received the Spoornet maroon livery. In the late 1990s at least two were repainted in the Spoornet blue livery with outline numbers on the sides. In the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa era after 2008, at least one was repainted in the Shosholoza Meyl purple livery.

Illustration