South African Class 10E

The South African Railways Class 10E of 1985 is an electric locomotive.

In 1985 and 1986, the South African Railways placed fifty Class 10E electric locomotives with a Co-Co wheel arrangement in mainline service.^[1]

Manufacturers

Builder’s plate

The 3 kV DC Class 10E electric locomotive was designed for the South African Railways (SAR) by Toshiba of Japan and was built by Union Carriage and Wagon (UCW) in Nigel, Transvaal. Toshiba supplied the electrical equipment while UCW was responsible for the mechanical components and assembly.^[1][2][3]

Fifty locomotives were delivered by UCW in 1985 and 1986, numbered in the range from 10-001 to 10-050. UCW did not allocate builder’s numbers to the locomotives it built for the SAR, but used the SAR unit numbers for their record keeping.^[1]

Characteristics

The Class 10E was introduced as a new standard 3 kV DC heavy goods locomotive. With a continuous power rating of 3,090 kilowatts (4,140 horsepower), four Class 10E locomotives are capable of performing the same work as six Class 6E1s.^[2]

The entire fleet of Class 10E electric locomotives feature electronic chopper control, which is smoother in comparison to the rheostatic resistance control which was used in the Classes 1E to 6E1 electric locomotives.^[4]

Brakes

The locomotive makes use of either regenerative or rheostatic braking, as the situation demands. Both traction and electric braking power are continuously variable, with the electric braking optimised to such an extent that maximum use will be made of the regenerative braking capacity of the 3 kV DC network, with the ability to automatically change over to rheostatic braking whenever the overhead supply system becomes non-receptive.^[2]

Bogies

The Class 10E was built with sophisticated traction linkages on the bogies, similar to the bogie design which was introduced on the Class 6E1 in 1969. Together with the locomotive's electronic wheel-slip detection system, these traction struts, mounted between the linkages on the bogies and the locomotive body and colloquially referred to as grasshopper legs, ensure the maximum transfer of power to the rails without causing wheel-slip, by reducing the adhesion of the leading bogie and increasing that of the trailing bogie by as much as 15% upon starting off.^[2]

Orientation

These dual cab locomotives have a roof access ladder on one side only, just to the right of the cab access door. The roof access ladder end is marked as the no. 2 end.^[1]

Identifying Features

In visual appearance the Class 10E can be distinguished from the later model Class 10E2 by the roof ends and the sills. The Class 10E has riffled roof ends and parts of the sill protrude slightly past the bottom edge of the body sides. The Class 10E2 has smooth unriffled roof ends and no part of the sill protrudes past the bottom edge of the body sides.^[1]

Service

The Class 10E is employed mainly to haul ore trains on the line between Kimberley and Hotazel in the Northern Cape and it also works between Kimberley and the Witwatersrand. Most are shedded at Beaconsfield near Kimberley, with several also at Welgedacht near Springs.^[5]

Illustration

The main picture shows no. 10-044 in Spoornet blue livery with outline numbers. Other liveries which were applied to the Class 10E, are illustrated below.

• 
  No. 10-021 in Spoornet orange livery at Pyramid South, Pretoria, 6 October 2009
• 
  No. 10-047 in Spoornet maroon livery at Klerksdorp, North West, 23 August 2007
• 
  No. 10-039 in Spoornet blue with outline numbers at Warrenton, 24 August 2007
• 
  No. 10-041 in Spoornet blue with outline numbers, Warrenton, 2 May 2013

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to South African Class 10E.

Locomotives of South Africa
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Electric	Amcoal Class E38 SAR Class ES SAR Class ES1 SAR Class Exp-AC SAR Class 1E SAR Class 2E SAR Class 3E SAR Class 4E SAR Class 5E s1 SAR Class 5E s2 SAR Class 5E s3 SAR Class 5E1 s1 SAR Class 5E1 s2 SAR Class 5E1 s3 SAR Class 5E1 s4 SAR Class 5E1 s5 SAR Class 6E SAR Class 6E1 s1 SAR Class 6E1 s2 SAR Class 6E1 s3 SAR Class 6E1 s4 SAR Class 6E1 s5 SAR Class 6E1 s6 SAR Class 6E1 s7 SAR Class 6E1 s8 SAR Class 6E1 s9 SAR Class 6E1 s10 SAR Class 6E1 s11 SAR Class 7E SAR Class 7E1 SAR Class 7E2 s1 SAR Class 7E2 s2 SAR Class 7E3 s1 SAR Class 7E3 s2 Spoornet Class 7E4 SAR Class 8E SAR Class 9E s1 SAR Class 9E s2 SAR Class 10E SAR Class 10E1 s1 Spoornet Class 10E1 s2 SAR Class 10E2 SAR Class 11E SAR Class 12E Spoornet Class 14E Spoornet Class 14E1 TFR Class 15E Spoornet Class 16E Spoornet Class 17E Spoornet Class 18E s1 TFR Class 18E s2 TFR Class 19E TFR Class 20E TFR Class 21E TFR Class 22E
Gas-electric	SAR Gas-electric
Diesel	3' 6" gauge Diesel-electric PRASA Class Afro 4000 SAR Class DS SAR Class DS1 SAR Class 31-000 SAR Class 32-000 SAR Class 32-200 SAR Class 33-000 SAR Class 33-200 SAR Class 33-400 SAR Class 34-000 SAR Class 34-200 SAR Class 34-400 SAR Class 34-500 SAR Class 34-600 SAR Class 34-800 SAR Class 34-900 SAR Class 35-000 SAR Class 35-200 SAR Class 35-400 SAR Class 35-600 TFR Class 35-800 SAR Class 36-000 SAR Class 36-200 SAR Class 37-000 Spoornet Class 39-000 TFR Class 39-200 TFR Class 43-000 TFR Class 44-000 2' gauge Diesel-electric SAR Class 91-000 3' 6" gauge Diesel-hydraulic SAR Class 61-000 3' 6" gauge Electro-diesel Spoornet Class 38-000
List of South African locomotive classes South African locomotive numbering and classification