Pretoria & Pietersburg Railway 2-6-4 Locomotives in South_Africa

Class 1 / D (Locobase 10150)

Data from "Tank Engine for South Africa", Engineer, Volume 87 (5 May 1899), pp 440, 443; and "South African Locomotives," The Locomotive Magazine, Volume V [5] (June 1899), p. 95. Works numbers were 3943-3498 in 1898 and 4127 in 1900.

This railway, which was taken over by the South African Railways in 1902, contracted for 6 locomotives in 1898. As the Engineer report described the operational conditions, the reader could only imagine how difficult the contract would be to fulfill. Curve radii minimums came to 150 metres and the ruling gradient was 2%. Rail weights limited axle loadings to 12 metric tons. Over such a railway, the engine's trailing load could be 212 tons and the engine needed to "easily" sustain a 25 mph (40 kph) speed. So the P&P required driver diameters of 45" (1,143 mm) while accommodating tanks holding 1,540 Imp gal and bunkers filled with 3 long tons of coal.

Engineer's correspondent didn't resist the opportunity to jab at the Americans in his summary extolling Beyer, Peacock's high quality. "In short, these engines combine all the features of lateral and vertical flexibility, and accessibility of parts, claimed for the American engine, with a substantiality and perferction of detail which is often lamentably wanting in engines imported from the United States for railways in new countries."

What did the Americans offer instead? "[L]owness in first cost is too frequently the determining factor in such cases." . Locobase replies in part that at this very moment in 1899, British builders were strapped for capacity and could not respond to many RFIs. Nor could they always match the speed at which US locomotives could be designed, built, and delivered.

Regardless of such badinage, Locobase concedes that BP deserved its high reputation. The long tanks distributed water weight effectively and the long wheelbase, well-compensated suspension, and relative freedom of movement suited its environment well

BPt completed the six alocomotives and sent them off on the ocean journey to the Cape of Good Hope. Somehow one of them was "lost at sea", so in 1900 BP produced a 7th to take the place of the missing engine.

Sporting the Belpaire firebox that was so often a part of a Beyer, Peacock locomotive, the sextet served commuter lines around Pretoria and Johannesburg. In 1930, the SAR began retiring the class and all six were soon scrapped.