South African Class 10E1, Series 2
Encyclopedia
Between 1990 and 1992 Spoornet placed fifty Class 10E1, Series 2 electric locomotives with a Co-Co wheel arrangement in main line service.

Manufacturer

The Class 10E1, Series 2 3 kV DC electric locomotive was designed for the South African Railways (SAR) by the General Electric Company (GEC) and built by Union Carriage and Wagon (UCW) in Nigel, Transvaal. GEC supplied the electrical equipment while UCW was responsible for the mechanical components and assembly. UCW delivered fifty locomotives to Spoornet between 1990 and 1992, numbered 10-126 to 10-175.

Contrary to prior UCW practice, GEC works numbers were allocated to the Class 10E1 locomotives. With the exception of the Class 9E, also a UCW built GEC locomotive, UCW did not allocate builder’s numbers to previous locomotives it built for the SAR or Spoornet. While usual practice by most other locomotive builders was to allocate builder’s numbers or works numbers to record the locomotives built by them, UCW simply used the SAR or Spoornet running numbers for their record keeping.

Characteristics

The Class 10E1 was introduced as a new standard 3 kV DC heavy goods locomotive. With a continuous power rating of 3090 kW, four Class 10E1 locomotives are capable of performing the same work as six Class 6E1.

Brakes

The locomotive makes use of either regenerative
Regenerative brake
A regenerative brake is an energy recovery mechanism which slows a vehicle or object down by converting its kinetic energy into another form, which can be either used immediately or stored until needed...

 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 network, with the ability to automatically change over to rheostatic braking whenever the overhead supply system becomes non-receptive.

Orientation

This dual cab locomotive has a roof access ladder on one side only, immediately to the right of the cab access door. The roof access ladder end is marked as the number 2 end. In visual appearance the Series 1 and Series 2 locomotives are virtually indistinguishable from each other.

Service

Most of the Class 10E1 locomotives were placed in service at Nelspruit and Ermelo in Mpumalanga. In 1998 a number of Spoornet’s electric locomotives and most of their Class 38-000 electro-diesel locomotives were sold to Maquarie-GETX (General Electric Financing) and leased back to Spoornet for a ten year period that was to expire in 2008. Of the Class 10E, Series 2, numbers 10-136 to 10-173 were included in this leasing deal.

See also

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