South African Railways

I FOUND the article‘A Rail Safari’ by Richard Gennis in the October 2023 edition extremely interesting, particularly the line from Saldanha to Sishen with the enormous 40,000 tonne iron ore trains using eight distributed locomotives. I note that the route is electrified, but I wonder why electric locomotives are not used. Is this because suitable electric locomotives are not available?

I also have very fond memories of the 3ft 6in gauge line from the High Veldt to Port Richard transporting very large coal trains, again with six distributed diesel locomotives, but the line (from memory) was not electrified. This was observed in 2005 during a holiday visit to South Africa.

Please keep up the good work in producing your excellent magazine, which I have read for numerous years, and my two-year subscription for future issues is already placed.

David Young, by email

With regards to the traction used on the Sishen to Saldanha line, when I have been there it has been pretty much a 50/50 split of diesels and electrics operating together in the consist, these being Class 43 diesels and Class 15 electrics hired in from Transnet. Most of the time the leading locomotives are always a Class 15 and 43 coupled together, which does seem strange, especially how they talk to each other.

When I was there in March 2023, the maintenance team at the Salcor depot were struggling with spares to keep the Class 15 electrics on the move, so I did see trains with a bigger percentage of diesels in the consist – Richard Gennis