South African Class 6E1, Series 9


The South African Railways Class 6E1, Series 9 of 1981 was an electric locomotive.
In 1981 and 1982, the South African Railways placed eighty-five Class 6E1, electric locomotives with a Bo-Bo wheel arrangement in mainline service.

Manufacturer

The 3 kV DC Class 6E1, Series 9 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.
In 1981 and 1982, 85 Series 9 locomotives were delivered, numbered in the range from E2001 to E2085. Like Series 6 to 8, the Series 9 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, but 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 locomotive 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 and a large hatch door below the second small window to the right of the side door on the roof access ladder side, and only one square access panel and a large hatch door below the first window immediately to the right of the door on the opposite side.

Series identifying features

The Class 6E1 was produced in eleven series over a period of nearly sixteen years. While some of the Class 6E1 series are visually indistinguishable from their predecessors or successors, some externally visible changes did occur over the years.
Series 8 and later locomotives could be distinguished from all older models by the large hatch door on each side. The Series 9 to Series 11 locomotives were visually indistinguishable from each other, but could be distinguished from all earlier models by the rainwater drainage holes on their lower sides. These holes were usually covered by so-called buckets, but the covers were absent on some locomotives. Another distinction was the end doors, which were recessed into the doorframes on Series 9 to Series 11 locomotives, compared to earlier models which had their end doors flush with the doorframes. In addition, on Series 9 and later models, the two side windows on the driver's assistant side were replaced by a single rectangular side window with rounded corners. Finally, unlike all earlier models, all four doors on Series 9 to Series 11 locomotives had rounded corners.

Crew access

The Classes 5E, 5E1, 6E and earlier 6E1 series locomotives were notoriously difficult to enter from ground level since their lever-style door handles were at waist level when standing inside the cab. This made 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 locomotives.
Side doors with two interconnected latch handles on the outside, such as those which were introduced on the Class 7E1 with one outside handle mounted near floor level and the other at mid-door level, were also introduced on Class 6E1 locomotives beginning with Series 9.

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 locomotives, 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.
The first two Series 9 locomotives, numbers E2001 and E2002, were built as experimental logic control locomotives. They were the only two Series 9 units to have been reclassified and renumbered to Class 16E, becoming no. 16-500A and B.

Modification to Class 17E

During 1993 and 1994, Class 17E locomotives were modified and reclassified from Class 6E1 Series 7, 8 or 9 locomotives. 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, and 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.
Seventy known Series 9 locomotives were reclassified to Class 17E. Their unit numbers are displayed in the table below.

Rebuilding to Class 18E

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 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 was 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.
While the earlier Class 6E1, Series 2 to 7 locomotives had been built with a brake system which consisted of various valves connected to each other with pipes, commonly referred to as a "bicycle frame" brake system, the Class 6E1, Series 8 to 11 locomotives were built with an air equipment frame brake system, commonly referred to as a "brake rack". Since the design of the rebuilt Class 18E locomotives included the same brake rack, the rebuilding project was begun with the newer series 8 to 11 locomotives to reduce the overall cost of rebuilding.
The Class 6E1, Series 9 locomotives which were used in this project were all rebuilt to Class 18E, Series 1 locomotives. Their numbers and renumbering details are shown in the table.

Count		6E1
no.		Year
built		18E
no.		18E
series		Year
rebuilt		Notes
1E2001198118-02912002ex 16-500A
2E2002198118-03012002ex 16-500B
3E20031981-8218-28512006ex 17E
4E20041981-8218-00912001
5E20051981-8218-30812007ex 17E
6E20061981-8218-32512007ex 17E
7E20071981-8218-23612005ex 17E
8E20081981-8218-27512006ex 17E
9E20091981-8218-04212002
10E20101981-8218-02212002
11E20111981-8218-25512006ex 17E
12E20121981-8218-27312006ex 17E
13E20131981-8218-05012002
14E20141981-8218-05812002
15E20151981-8218-26112006ex 17E
16E20161981-8218-23212005ex 17E
17E20171981-8218-29912006ex 17E
18E20181981-8218-24912006ex 17E
19E20191981-8218-25212006ex 17E
20E20201981-8218-19412005ex 17E
21E20211981-8218-04512002
22E20221981-8218-21112005ex 17E
23E20231981-8218-26712006ex 17E
24E20241981-8218-25912006ex 17E
25E20251981-8218-19312005ex 17E
26E20261981-8218-19612005ex 17E
27E20271981-8218-31912007ex 17E
28E20281981-8218-21012005ex 17E
29E20291981-8218-32712007ex 17E
30E20301981-8218-22312005ex 17E
31E20311981-8218-30412006ex 17E
32E20321981-8218-30112006ex 17E
33E20331981-8218-24612006ex 17E
34E20341981-8218-25412006ex 17E
35E20361981-8218-24712006ex 17E
36E20371981-8218-03712002ex 17E
37E20381981-8218-07412003ex 17E
38E20391981-8218-23012005ex 17E
39E20401981-8218-24112006ex 17E
40E20411981-8218-27612006ex 17E
41E20421981-8218-22712005ex 17E
42E20431981-8218-23412005ex 17E
43E2044198218-21912005ex 17E
44E2045198218-23812005ex 17E
45E2046198218-27112006ex 17E
46E2047198218-26812006ex 17E
47E2048198218-25812006ex 17E
48E2050198218-23912006ex 17E
49E2051198218-22912005ex 17E
50E2052198218-21812005ex 17E
51E2053198218-09312003ex 17E
52E2054198218-25712006ex 17E
53E2055198218-02812002ex 17E
54E2056198218-07912003ex 17E
55E2057198218-24012005ex 17E
56E2058198218-25312006ex 17E
57E2059198218-32112007ex 17E
58E2060198218-25012006ex 17E
59E2061198218-05612002
60E2062198218-28212006ex 17E
61E2063198218-24212006ex 17E
62E2064198218-28112006ex 17E
63E2065198218-19212005ex 17E
64E2066198218-21212005ex 17E
65E2067198218-24512006ex 17E
66E2068198218-30212006ex 17E
67E2069198218-29112006ex 17E
68E2070198218-22412005ex 17E
69E2071198218-32812007ex 17E
70E2072198218-02012002
71E2073198218-24312006ex 17E
72E2074198218-00812001
73E2075198218-07312003ex 17E
74E2076198218-22812005ex 17E
75E2077198218-24412006ex 17E
76E2078198218-05412002
77E2079198218-12712004ex 17E
78E2080198218-18112005
79E2081198218-25112006ex 17E
80E2082198218-23512005ex 17E
81E2083198218-05712002
82E2084198218-21712005ex 17E
83E2085198218-21412005ex 17E

Liveries

All the Class 6E1, Series 9 locomotives were 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 9 units began to be repainted in the Spoornet orange livery with a yellow and blue chevron pattern on the cowcatchers.

Illustration