South African Class 7E2, Series 2

The South African Railways Class 7E2, Series 2 of 1983 is an electric locomotive.

In 1983, the South African Railways placed forty Class 7E2, Series 2 electric locomotives with a Co-Co wheel arrangement in mainline service.^[1]

Manufacturer

Builders’ plate, no. E7204

The 25 kV AC Class 7E2, Series 2 electric locomotive was designed for the South African Railways (SAR) by the 50 ^c/s Group, a consortium consisting of ACEC of Belgium, AEG-Telefunken and Siemens of Germany, Alsthom-Atlantique and Société MTE of France, and Brown Boveri of Switzerland.^[2][3]

It was built by Union Carriage and Wagon (UCW) in Nigel, Transvaal, who delivered forty locomotives in 1983, numbered in the range from E7176 to E7215. UCW did not allocate builder’s numbers to the locomotives which it built for the SAR, but used the SAR unit numbers for their record keeping.^[1]

Orientation

These dual cab locomotives have a roof access ladder on one side only, just to the right of the cab access door. The roof access ladder end is designated the no. 2 end.^[1]

In visual appearance, the Series 2 locomotives can be distinguished from the Series 1 by the vertical grilles just to the rear of the driver’s window, on both sides on the Series 2 locomotives, absent on Series 1. Both series have a large grille to the right of centre on the side opposite the roof access ladder side, near roof level on Series 1 locomotives and low down near sill level on Series 2. The three grilles in line, just to the rear of the side doors on Series 1 locomotives, were replaced with a single long grille on Series 2 locomotives. Like the Class 7E, some of the Class 7E2, Series 2 locomotives have distinctive "eyebrow" rainwater beadings above their cab windscreens, but these were added post-delivery and were not installed on all the units.^[1]

Features

Brakes

Control of traction and rheostatic braking on the Class 7E2, Series 2 is by stepless solid-state electronics. The electrical equipment was designed for high power factor operation, obtained by a sector control method.^[2] Like the earlier Classes 7E and 7E2, Series 1, these locomotives were equipped with thyristor technology from the 50 ^c/s Group.

Bogies

To reduce flange and rail wear, the bogies of both series of the Class 7E2 have a shorter wheelbase than the Class 7E, 4,060 millimetres (13 feet 3.8 inches) instead of 4,400 millimetres (14 ft 5.2 in).^[1][2]

The Class 7E2 was built with sophisticated traction linkages on the bogies. Together with the locomotive's electronic wheel-slip detection system, these traction struts, mounted between the linkages on the bogies and the locomotive body and colloquially referred to as grasshopper legs, ensure the maximum transfer of power to the rails without causing wheel-slip, by reducing the adhesion of the leading bogie and increasing that of the trailing bogie by as much as 15% upon starting.^[2]

Pantographs

As on the Class 7E, the locomotive's pantograph contact shoe centres are directly above the bogie pivot centres. The reason is to reduce the possibility of pantograph hookups on catenary in sharp curves, such as in turnouts, as a result of sideways movement of the pantograph in relation to the overhead wire.^[1]

Service

The Class 7E2, Series 2 was placed in service on the northern 25 kV AC routes, which stretch from Pyramid South, just north of Pretoria, via Warmbad to Pietersburg and via Brits and Rustenburg to Thabazimbi, where they still serve.^[4]

Illustration

The main picture shows no. E7215 in its original SAR Gulf Red and yellow whiskers livery. Other liveries which were applied to Class 7E2, Series 2 locomotives, are illustrated below.

• 
  No. E7202 in Spoornet orange livery at Pyramid South, 6 October 2009
• 
  No. E7182 in Spoornet maroon at Pyramid North, 6 October 2009
• 
  No. E7200 in Spoornet blue with outline numbers at Pyramid South, 6 October 2009

• 
  No. E7206 in Transnet Freight Rail livery at Pyramid South, 27 September 2015
• 
  No. E7201 in PRASA's Shosholoza Meyl livery at Pyramid South, 7 May 2013

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to South African Class 7E2 Series 2.

Locomotives of South Africa
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Electric	Amcoal Class E38 SAR Class ES SAR Class ES1 SAR Class Exp-AC SAR Class 1E SAR Class 2E SAR Class 3E SAR Class 4E SAR Class 5E s1 SAR Class 5E s2 SAR Class 5E s3 SAR Class 5E1 s1 SAR Class 5E1 s2 SAR Class 5E1 s3 SAR Class 5E1 s4 SAR Class 5E1 s5 SAR Class 6E SAR Class 6E1 s1 SAR Class 6E1 s2 SAR Class 6E1 s3 SAR Class 6E1 s4 SAR Class 6E1 s5 SAR Class 6E1 s6 SAR Class 6E1 s7 SAR Class 6E1 s8 SAR Class 6E1 s9 SAR Class 6E1 s10 SAR Class 6E1 s11 SAR Class 7E SAR Class 7E1 SAR Class 7E2 s1 SAR Class 7E2 s2 SAR Class 7E3 s1 SAR Class 7E3 s2 Spoornet Class 7E4 SAR Class 8E SAR Class 9E s1 SAR Class 9E s2 SAR Class 10E SAR Class 10E1 s1 Spoornet Class 10E1 s2 SAR Class 10E2 SAR Class 11E SAR Class 12E Spoornet Class 14E Spoornet Class 14E1 TFR Class 15E Spoornet Class 16E Spoornet Class 17E Spoornet Class 18E s1 TFR Class 18E s2 TFR Class 19E TFR Class 20E TFR Class 21E TFR Class 22E
Gas-electric	SAR Gas-electric
Diesel	3' 6" gauge Diesel-electric PRASA Class Afro 4000 SAR Class DS SAR Class DS1 SAR Class 31-000 SAR Class 32-000 SAR Class 32-200 SAR Class 33-000 SAR Class 33-200 SAR Class 33-400 SAR Class 34-000 SAR Class 34-200 SAR Class 34-400 SAR Class 34-500 SAR Class 34-600 SAR Class 34-800 SAR Class 34-900 SAR Class 35-000 SAR Class 35-200 SAR Class 35-400 SAR Class 35-600 TFR Class 35-800 SAR Class 36-000 SAR Class 36-200 SAR Class 37-000 Spoornet Class 39-000 TFR Class 39-200 TFR Class 43-000 TFR Class 44-000 2' gauge Diesel-electric SAR Class 91-000 3' 6" gauge Diesel-hydraulic SAR Class 61-000 3' 6" gauge Electro-diesel Spoornet Class 38-000
List of South African locomotive classes South African locomotive numbering and classification