South African Class 34-800

The South African Railways Class 34-800 of 1978 is a diesel-electric locomotive.
Between August 1978 and December 1979, the South African Railways placed fifty Class 34-800 General Motors Electro-Motive Division type GT26MC diesel-electric locomotives in service. In 1979 one more of the same type was placed in service by Iscor in Newcastle and between April and July 1980 a further eight of these locomotives were delivered to the South African Railways.

Manufacturer

The Class 34-800 type GT26MC diesel-electric locomotive was designed by General Motors Electro-Motive Division and built for the South African Railways and Iscor by General Motors South Africa in Port Elizabeth. The first fifty were delivered between August 1978 and December 1979, numbered in the range from 34-801 to 34-850. In 1979, one more of the same type was placed in service by Iscor. Between April and July 1980, a further eight of these locomotives were delivered to the South African Railways, numbered in the range from 34-851 to.

Distinguishing features

Of the GM-EMD Class 34 family of locomotives, Classes and [South African Class 34-600|] locomotives are visually indistinguishable from one another, but they can be distinguished from the Class by the thicker fishbelly-shaped sills on their left sides compared to the straight sill on the left side of the Class.

Rebuilding and modification

Class 39-000

The Class 39-000 type GT26CU-3 diesel-electric locomotives were to be rebuilt from Class, and [South African Class 37-000|] locomotives. The project commenced in 2005, using suitable frames from wrecked locomotives.
Rebuilding was done at the Transwerk shops in Bloemfontein between 2006 and 2008. It was intended to produce one hundred Class but in spite of the technical success of the project, rebuilding was halted after completing the first five locomotives due to higher than anticipated cost. Two of these five were rebuilt from Class locomotives. It was decided, instead of rebuilding old locomotives, to rather build fifty new Class locomotives from imported and locally produced components.

Traction motor upgrade

In 2010, a project commenced at the Koedoespoort Transnet Rail Engineering shops to upgrade Class locomotives by, amongst other modifications, replacing the GM-EMD D29B with GM-EMD D31 traction motors, thereby improving their performance to the standard of the Class. The upgraded locomotives could initially be distinguished by the running board mounted handrails which were installed on the right side only during the upgrade.

Service

South African Railways

In SAR, Spoornet and Transnet Freight Rail service, the Class worked on most mainlines and some unelectrified branchlines in the central, eastern, northern and northeastern parts of the country.

National Railways of Zimbabwe

From at least 1988 until at least 1992, the National Railways of Zimbabwe hired type GT26MC Class locomotives from the SAR and later Spoornet. At least one Class locomotive, no., also served on lease in Zimbabwe and was observed there in September 1992.

NLPI Limited

NLPI Limited, abbreviated from New Limpopo Projects Investments, a Mauritius-registered company, specialises in private sector investments by using the build-operate-transfer concept. It had three connected railway operations in Zimbabwe and Zambia, which formed a rail link between South Africa and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The Beitbridge [Bulawayo Railway], commissioned on 1 September 1999, operates the Beit Bridge to Bulawayo line in Zimbabwe.
Since February 2004 NLPI Logistics operates between Bulawayo and Victoria Falls on the Zimbabwe-Zambia border.
Since February 2003 the Railway Systems of Zambia operated on the former Zambian Railways from Victoria Falls to Sakania in the Congo.

In Zambia, the RSZ locomotive fleet included former ZR locomotives, but the rest of the locomotive fleet of all three operations consisted of South African GM-EMD Classes [South African Class 34-200|], [South African Class 34-600|] and and GE Classes 35-000 and 35-400 locomotives from Spoornet and later TFR. These locomotives were sometimes marked or branded as either BBR or LOG or both, but their status, whether leased or loaned, was unclear since they were still on the TFR roster and still often worked in South Africa as well. Class locomotives which served with NLPI include the locomotives annotated "NLPI" in the "disposition" column in the table below.
Zambia Railways, the state-owned holding company, resumed control of the Zambian national rail network on 11 September 2012. This followed the government's decision to revoke the operating concession awarded to RSZ after Finance Minister Alexander Chikwanda claimed that RSZ had "blatantly disregarded the provisions of the agreement" and had been "acting in a manner prejudicial to the interests of Zambians".

Iscor

In 1979, one Class locomotive was delivered new to Iscor's Newcastle steel works in Natal, numbered.

Works numbers

The works numbers of the Class as well as their known disposal and deployment are displayed in the table.

Loco no.	GMSA works no.	Disposition	New no.
34-801	112-1
34-802	112-2
34-803	112-3
34-804	112-4
34-805	112-5
34-806	112-6
34-807	112-7
34-808	112-8
34-809	112-9
34-810	112-10
34-811	112-11
34-812	112-12
34-813	112-13
34-814	112-14
34-815	112-15	D31 tr. motors
34-816	112-16
34-817	112-17
34-818	112-18	NLPI
34-819	112-19	NLPI/D31 tr. motors
34-820	112-20	NRZ
34-821	112-21	D31 tr. motors
34-822	112-22
34-823	112-23
34-824	112-24
34-825	112-25
34-826	112-26
34-827	112-27
34-828	112-28
34-829	112-29	Class 39-000	39-005
34-830	112-30
34-831	112-31
34-832	112-32
34-833	112-33
34-834	112-34	NLPI/D31 tr. motors
34-835	112-35	NLPI
34-836	112-36
34-837	112-37
34-838	112-38	Class 39-000	39-002
34-839	112-39	D31 tr. motors
34-840	112-40
34-841	112-41
34-842	112-42
34-843	112-43
34-844	112-44
34-845	112-45
34-846	112-46
34-847	112-47
34-848	112-48
34-849	112-49	D31 tr. motors
34-850	112-50
34-851	113-1
34-852	113-2
34-853	113-3
34-854	113-4
34-855	113-5	D31 tr. motors
34-856	113-6
34-857	113-7
34-858	113-8	D31 tr. motors
666-0090	114-1	Iscor

Liveries

The Class 34-800 were all delivered in the SAR Gulf Red livery with signal red buffer beams, yellow side stripes on the long hood sides and a yellow V on each end. In the 1990s many of them began to be repainted in the Spoornet orange livery with a yellow and blue chevron pattern on the buffer beams. Some later received the Spoornet Traction maroon livery. In the late 1990s a few were repainted in the Spoornet blue livery with outline numbers on the long hood sides. After 2008 in the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa era, at least one was repainted in the PRASA blue livery.