New Cape Central Railway Beyer-Garratt Locomotives in South_Africa

Class G/GK (Locobase 747)

Data from "'Garratt' Patent Locomotives for the New Cape Central Railway", Volume XXIX [29] (15 September 1923), p. 256-257; and "South African Railways, Design No. 02304", Beyer-Garrrat Patent Articulated Locomotives (Manchester, England: Beyer-Peacock & Company Limited, 1931), archived on flickr's Historical Railway Images at [], et seq, p. 43.. Virtually identical to the Trans-Zambezi locomotives. Works numbers were 6135-6136 in 1923.

Natal Navigation Collieries and Estate Co (aka known as Vyrheid Coal & Coke) #2 (Locobase 20932) andTrans-Zambezi Railway engines (Locobase 718) were identical to these G-class Garratts. All had Walschaert gear, piston valves for all four simple-expansion cylinders, a superheater, and a Belpaire firebox.

The NCR was a private railway opened to provide through traffic from Cape Town to Port Elizabeth to reduce or eliminate the use of double-heading to move passenger trains of seven bogie coaches weighing a total of 270-280 tons.

A principal reason was the need to scale 94 gradients pitched at 2 1/2% (1 in 40). Over the 190 total miles (310 km), 30 1/2 miles (49.1 km) presented that challenge with one measuring 2.4 miles (3.9 km). BP pointed out that the power tonnage was cut by 75% pulling the same load and coal consumption dropped by 5 tons on a 147-mile run, which was equivalent, BP's1931 report claimed, to "an economy of 50 percent over double heading and the saving of the wages of one engine crew. Another benefit was time spend on maintenance. For example, a Garratt require one cleaning during the run. Two 4-8-0s each required two cleanings and, moreover, "the smokebox ash at the end of the run was but 1/25th of that found in the smoke boxes of the other type.