The South African Class H2 4-8-2T of 1909 is a South African steam locomotive from the pre-Union era in the Natal Colony. Between 1899 and 1903 the Natal Government Railways placed one hundred and one 4-10-2T tank steam locomotives in service. By 1910 five of them had been converted to a 4-8-2T wheel arrangement and in 1912, with the establishment of the South African Railways, these five were designated Class H2. Origin The requirement for a tank locomotive that could haul at least one and a half times as much as a Dübs A 4-8-2T locomotive on the mainline of the Natal Government Railways (NGR) resulted in the design of a 4-10-2T tank locomotive by NGR Locomotive Superintendent G.W. Reid. Altogether one hundred and one of these locomotives were built by Dübs and Company and North British Locomotive Company, delivered between 1899 and 1903 and numbered 149 to 249. On the NGR the locomotive type became known as the Reid Tenwheeler, until a classification system was introduced in 1905 or 1906 and they were designated the NGR Class C. Modification When the Reid Tenwheelers began to be withdrawn from mainline service and put in branchline and shunting service where smaller radius curves were encountered, it was found that the ten-coupled wheelbase was prone to derailment in many goods yards. By the end of 1908 these locomotives were all still shown on the roster as 4-10-2T locomotives, but from around 1909 some of them were gradually converted to a 4-8-2T wheel arrangement by removing the fifth set of drivers and blanking off the resulting opening in the frame. South African Railways The Union of South Africa was established on 31 May 1910, in terms of the South Africa Act, enacted by the Parliament of the United Kingdom. One of the clauses in the Act required that the three Colonial Government railways, the Cape Government Railways, the NGR and the Central South African Railways, also be united under one single administration to control and administer the railways, ports and harbours of the Union. While the South African Railways (SAR) came into existence in 1910, the actual classification and renumbering of all the rolling stock of the three constituent railways required careful planning and was only implemented with effect from 1 January 1912. Class H2 330 (4-8-2T) IDR.JPG By 1912 five locomotives were already modified to a 4-8-2T wheel arrangement. These were NGR numbers 170, 173, 175, 217 and 240, all built by Dübs between 1901 and 1903. They were classified as Class H2 and were renumbered 227 to 231 on the SAR roster. Of the remaining ninety-six unmodified 4-10-2T Reid Tenwheeler locomotives, three had already been scrapped by 1912. The rest were classified as Class H and were renumbered 232 to 324 on the SAR roster. After 1912 these Class H locomotives were gradually also modified to a 4-8-2T wheel arrangement. The first three to be modified after being rostered in SAR service, numbers 240, 294 and 305, were reclassified to Class H2 as well and were renumbered once again, to 329, 330 and 331 respectively. The rest retained their Class H numbers even after modification. Service The Class H2 was employed extensively in shunting service in many parts of the country, together with the Class H1. Because of their light axle loading, the last ones to remain in service were retained for use on the Bluff in Durban until 1977.
Posted on: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 21:09:12 +0000