South African Class 33 400

Manufacturer

The Class 33-400 type GE U20C diesel-electric locomotive was designed for the South African Railways (SAR) by General Electric (GE) and built by the South African General Electric-Dorman Long Locomotive Group (SA GE-DL, later Dorbyl). One hundred and fifteen locomotives were delivered between July 1968 and March 1970, numbered in the range from 33-401 to 33-515.

Class 33 series

The Class 33 consists of three series, the GE Classes 33-000 and 33-400 and the General Motors Electro-Motive Division Class 33-200. Both of these manufacturers also produced locomotives for the subsequent SAR Classes 34, 35 and 36.

The two GE-built Classes are virtually identical in appearance, but can be distinguished from each other by some ventilation openings on their bodywork.

These doors and panels can, and sometimes did, get swapped between models, either as replace­ment for damaged items or by chance during overhauls. An example is SCTP no. 1435, sold to the Congolese Company for Transportation and Ports (SCTP), illustrated below, of which the left door on the nose had been swapped with that of their Class 33-000 no. 1436, illustrated alongside.

South African Railways

Upon being commissioned, a large number of the Class 33-400 locomotives were placed in service in South West Africa (SWA). Forty-five of them were eventually transferred to TransNamib, the Namibian Railways, upon SWA’s independence on 21 March 1990. They retained their SAR engine numbers on the TransNamib roster, but without the "33-" prefix. Some have since been sold, while others have been rebuilt with reconditioned engines by TransNamib's workshops in Windhoek and renumbered from no. 501 up.

The two cabside number plates on Class 33-400 locomotives were not identical. Usually, all the locomotives in a Class would have either Afrikaans or English at the top of all their number plates. On the Class 33-400's number plates, the inscription was in Afrikaans at the top on the right or driver’s side, and in English at the top on the left or driver's assistant's side.

In South Africa, most of the Class 33-400 locomotives survived in mainline and branchline service well into the 21st century, for example on the lines from De Aar to Upington, from Worcester to Voorbaai and on suburban service out of East London. From 2009, some were also employed out of Cape Town, on the Overberg line across Sir Lowry’s Pass to Caledon and on the Bitterfontein line up the West Coast, where they replaced several Classes 35-000 and 35-400 locomotives, which were leased to private railway operators in several Southern African countries.

Some were employed for a while as heavy shunters, to assemble or unload iron ore trains at the Sishen-Saldanha iron ore route's terminals, until the arrival of the Class 43-000 in 2011 made more Classes 34-000, 34-400, 34-500 and 34-900 locomotives available for this task.

Zambia

Between October 1978 and May 1993, Zambia Railways (ZR) hired locomotives to solve it's chronic shortages in motive power, mainly from South Africa but, at times, also from Zaire, Zimbabwe, the TAZARA Railway and even the Zambian Copper Mines. In Zambia, the South African locomotives were mainly used on goods trains between Livingstone and Kitwe, sometimes in tandem with a ZR locomotive and occasionally also on passenger trains.

Locomotives were selected from a pool of engines, which was allocated by the Railways for hire to Zambia. The South African fleet in Zambia was never constant, since loco­motives were continually exchanged as they became due back in South Africa for their three-monthly services. The locomotives were initially selected from the Classes 33-400, 35-000 and 35-200, but by December 1989, some Class 33-000 locomotives also began to serve one or more tours of duty in Zambia.

The pool of Class 33-400 locomotives, allocated by the Railways for hire to ZR from time to time, included the locomotives as shown in the "Leased to" column in the table below. The last Class 33-400 locomotive to serve in Zambia was no. 33-491, which was returned in April 1992. By the end of May 1993, no more South African locomotives were working in Zambia.

South America

In 1997, twenty Class 33-400 locomotives were sold to Ferrovia Centro-Atlântica (FCA). They were since resold, in 1999, to América Latina Logística (ALL) in Brazil, where they retained their FCA engine numbers.

In 2003, three of these locomotives, ex SAR numbers 33-410 (ALL 2663), 33-452 (2668) and 33-481 (2679), were resold to the Ferroviaria Oriental (FOB) in Bolivia. Of these, two were resold again to Sociedad Química y Minera (SQM) in Chile.

Of these twenty locomotives in South America, ten still survived by July 2010. These include the three units sold to FOB and subsequently resold to EFO and SQM, five locomotives reported as non-operating and two which were returned to Rede Ferroviária Federal, Sociedade Anônima, (RFFSA), the state-owned federal railroad network of Brazil.

Sudan Railways

Ten Class 33-400 locomotives were sold to the Sudan Railways.

Mozambique

In 2013, some Class 33-000 locomotives were sold to Corredor de Desenvolvimento do Norte (CDN) at Nacala in northern Mozambique, which operates a rail link with the land-locked Malawi to the west. These locomotives were refurbished in South Africa, prior to being delivered to their new owners.

Democratic Republic of the Congo

In 2015, some Class 33-000 and Class 33-400 locomotives were sold to the Congolese Company for Transportation and Ports (SCTP, formerly Onatra) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. These locomotives were also refurbished in South Africa, prior to being delivered to their new owners.

Industrial service

Six Class 33-400 locomotives were sold to Iscor (now Kumba Iron Ore) for use at its Vanderbijlpark steel works and at Kumba’s Grootgeluk Colliery at Ellisras.

Works numbers

The Class 33-400 builder’s works numbers and eventual disposition are listed in the table.

Illustration

The main picture and the following photographs serve to illustrate the distinguishing features of the Class as well as some of the liveries that they served in.