South African Class 7D 4-8-0


The South African Railways Class 7D 4-8-0 of 1915 was a steam locomotive.
Between 1899 and 1903, the Rhodesia Railways placed 52 Cape 7th Class 4-8-0 Mastodon steam locomotives in service. During the Second Boer War, one more was obtained from the Imperial Military Railways in March 1901, as replacement for a locomotive which was damaged beyond local repair capabilities as a result of hostilities during delivery.
In May 1915, five of these locomotives were sold to the South African Railways, where they were renumbered and reclassified, four of them to Class 7D and the remaining one erroneously to Class 7B. At the same time, the ex Imperial Military Railways locomotive was also sold back to South Africa and was, also erroneously, designated Class 7D.

Rhodesian 7th Class

The original Cape 7th Class locomotive had been designed in 1892 by H.M. Beatty, at the time the Cape Government Railways Western System Locomotive Superintendent.
Between 1899 and 1903, 52 such Cape 7th Class 4-8-0 steam locomotives were built for the Beira and Mashonaland and Rhodesia Railways, later the Rhodesia Railways. These locomotives were acquired by Southern Rhodesia at the time when railways were still expanding from South Africa via the Bechuanaland Protectorate into Southern Rhodesia in the southwest, and from Beira in Mozambique to Umtali in the east, and while the Second Boer War was in progress. At the time, the system was composed of several smaller railways, still largely under construction, which were eventually all linked up in 1902. These were:
  • The fledgling Bechuanaland Railways, which was still being operated by the Cape Government Railways, from Vryburg via Mafeking in the Cape Colony to Bulawayo in Southern Rhodesia.
  • The Mashonaland Railways, which operated in Southern Rhodesia from Bulawayo to Umtali in the east.
  • The Rhodesia Railways Northern Extensions, which operated north and east of Bulawayo, towards Northern Rhodesia.
  • The Beira and Mashonaland and Rhodesia Railways, which operated between Umtali in Southern Rhodesia and Beira in Mozambique.

Manufacturers

The 52 locomotives were ordered in five batches from three British manufacturers.
  • Twelve were delivered by Neilson, Reid and Company between August and October 1899. They were virtually identical to the SAR Class 7A. Two of them were numbered BR7 and BR8 for the BMR, for service at the Beira end, while the rest were numbered in the range from RR1 to RR10.
  • A second batch of twelve were delivered by Neilson, Reid in August 1900 and numbered in the range from RR11 to RR22. They were placed in service on the line from Vryburg to Bulawayo and shedded at Mafeking. In 1901, four of them, no. RR11, RR12, RR17 and RR20, were relocated to the BMR and renumbered in the range from MR20 to MR23, in order. Many of the Neilson, Reid-built locomotives from both batches were renumbered a second time in 1906, as shown in the table.
  • A third batch of eight locomotives was delivered from Kitson and Company between 1901 and 1903, numbered in the range from RR23 to RR30. These were built with Belpaire fireboxes instead of the usual round-topped fireboxes with which all earlier 7th Class locomotives of the CGR, the IMR and the RR were delivered. They were also placed in service at Mafeking.
  • The fourth batch of ten locomotives, again with Belpaire fireboxes, was delivered from North British Locomotive Company in October and November 1903. They were numbered in the range from RR31 to RR40. Of these, numbers RR31 to RR38 were allocated to the Mashonaland Railways-Kalomo-Broken Hill section. They retained their RR numbers, but had brass plates with the letters "KB" affixed above their number plates on their cab sides, to indicate their ownership. The other two were also placed in service at Mafeking.
  • The fifth and final batch of ten Rhodesian 7th Class locomotives was also built by NBL and delivered in November and December 1903, numbered in the range from RR41 to RR50. They were also placed in service at Mafeking.

South African Railways

In May 1915, six of the Neilson, Reid-built 7th Class locomotives were purchased by the South African Railways to augment its locomotive stock, which was being taxed severely due to war conditions at the time. These six locomotives included the war-damaged no. RR8 which had still not been repaired and consequently never ran a mile in revenue service in Rhodesia, as well as the ex IMR locomotive which had been transferred to Rhodesia as compensation for the damaged no. RR8.
These locomotives were initially referred to as Class RR, until they were later designated SAR Class 7D. Five of them were renumbered in the range from 1351 to 1355 on the SAR roster. The sixth, SAR no. 949, was erroneously designated Class 7B.

Classification errors

During this SAR classification and renumbering process, two of these locomotives were incorrectly classified, possibly as a result of their records getting exchanged in an apparent administrative error.
  • Ex IMR no. 110, which had replaced the damaged no. RR8, would have become Central South African Railways no. 380 in 1902 and, with the rest of the ex IMR locomotives, would have been designated SAR Class 7B in 1912, but this never happened since the engine had already been transferred to the BMR at Umtali in March 1901. When it was taken onto the SAR roster from Rhodesia in 1915, it was incorrectly designated as Class 7D instead of Class 7B and renumbered SAR no. 1355.
  • Ex no. RR1, later no. MR8 and then no. RRM63, was incorrectly designated as Class 7B instead of ex IMR no. 110 and was renumbered SAR no. 949.

Class 7 sub-classes

Other 7th Class locomotives which came onto the SAR roster from the other Colonial railways in the region in 1912, namely the CGR, CSAR, the Natal Government Railways and, in 1925, from the New Cape Central Railways, were grouped into six different sub-classes by the SAR, becoming SAR Classes 7, 7A to 7C, 7E and 7F.

Modifications

During the 1930s, many of the Class 7 family of locomotives were equipped with superheating and piston valves. On the Class 7B and Class 7C, this conversion was sometimes indicated with an "S" suffix to the class letter on the locomotive number plates, but on the rest of the Class 7 family this distinction was not applied consistently. The superheated versions could be identified by the position of the chimney on the smokebox, the chimney having been displaced forward to provide space behind it in the smokebox for the superheater header.

Service

South Africa

In SAR service, the Class 7 series worked on every system in the country. They remained in branch line service until they were finally withdrawn in 1972.

South West Africa

In 1915, shortly after the outbreak of the First World War, the German South West Africa colony was occupied by the Union Defence Forces. Since a large part of the territory's railway infrastructure and rolling stock was destroyed or damaged by retreating German forces, an urgent need arose for locomotives for use on the Cape gauge lines in that territory. In 1917, numbers 1351 to 1353 were transferred to the Defence Department for service in South West Africa.
These three locomotives remained in South West Africa after the war. The Class 7s proved to be so successful in that territory that more were gradually transferred there in later years. By the time the Class 24 locomotives arrived in SWA in 1949, 53 locomotives of the Class 7 family were still in use there. Most remained there and were only transferred back to South Africa when the Class 32-000 diesel-electric locomotives replaced them in 1961.

Works numbers

Their builders, works numbers and renumbering are listed in the table.

Builder		Works
No.		Year
RR
No.		1901
No.		1906
No.		SAR
No.
Neilson, Reid56751899BR 7MR 14MR 8
Neilson, Reid56761899BR 8MR 15MR 9
Neilson, Reid56771899RR 1MR 8RRM 63Class 7B 949
Neilson, Reid56781899RR 2MR 9To Shire
Neilson, Reid56791899RR 3MR 10MR 10
Neilson, Reid56801899RR 4MR 11MR 11
Neilson, Reid56811899RR 5MR 12MR 12
Neilson, Reid56821899RR 6MR 13RRM 641352
Neilson, Reid56831899MR 11MR 18RRM 671353
Neilson, Reid56841899RR 81354
Neilson, Reid56851899RR 9MR 16RRM 651351
Neilson, Reid56861899RR 10MR 17RRM 66
Neilson, Reid57911900RR 11MR 20RRM 69
Neilson, Reid57921900RR 12MR 21RRM 70
Neilson, Reid57931900RR 13
Neilson, Reid57941900RR 14
Neilson, Reid57951900RR 15
Neilson, Reid57961900RR 16
Neilson, Reid57971900RR 17MR 22RRM 71
Neilson, Reid57981900RR 18
Neilson, Reid57991900RR 19
Neilson, Reid58001900RR 20MR 23RRM 72
Neilson, Reid58011900RR 21
Neilson, Reid58021900RR 22
Neilson, Reid58171900IMR 110MR 19RRM 681355
Kitson40621901RR 23
Kitson40631901RR 24
Kitson40641901RR 25
Kitson40651901RR 26
Kitson40661901RR 27
Kitson40671901RR 28
Kitson40681901RR 29
Kitson40691901RR 30
NBL160851903RR 31
NBL160861903RR 32
NBL160871903RR 33
NBL160881903RR 34
NBL160891903RR 35
NBL160901903RR 36
NBL160911903RR 37
NBL160921903RR 38
NBL160931903RR 39
NBL160941903RR 40
NBL161711903RR 41
NBL161721903RR 42
NBL161731903RR 43
NBL161741903RR 44
NBL161751903RR 45
NBL161761903RR 46
NBL161771903RR 47
NBL161781903RR 48
NBL161791903RR 49
NBL161801903RR 50