The South African Railways Class 10E1, Series 1 of 1987 is an electric locomotive.

Between 1987 and 1989, the South African Railways placed fifty Class 10E1, Series 1 electric locomotives with a Co-Co wheel arrangement in mainline service as a new standard heavy goods locomotive.South African Railways Index and Diagrams Electric and Diesel Locomotives, 610mm and 1065mm Gauges, Ref LXD 14/1/100/20, 28 January 1975, as amended

Manufacturer The 3 kV DC Class 10E1, Series 1 electric locomotive was designed for the South African Railways (SAR) by the General Electric Company (GEC) and built by Union Carriage & Wagon (UCW) in Nigel, Transvaal. GEC supplied the electrical equipment while UCW was responsible for the mechanical components and assembly.

Fifty locomotives were delivered by UCW between 1987 and 1989, numbered in the range from to . 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-designed locomotive, UCW did not allocate builder’s numbers to previous locomotives it built for the SAR, but used the SAR unit 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 , four Class 10E1 locomotives were capable of performing the same work as six Class 6E1. The entire fleet of Class 10E1 electric locomotives uses electronic chopper control which is smoother in comparison to the rheostatic resistance control that was used in the Classes 1E to 6E1 range of electric locomotives.Jane's Train Recognition Guide

Brakes The locomotive makes use of either regenerative 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 network, with the ability to automatically change over to rheostatic braking whenever the overhead supply system becomes non-receptive.Class 10E1 – Principle (sic) Dimensions and Technical Data (TFR leaflet used in driver training, circa 2010)

Bogies The Class 10E1 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 off.

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 no. 2 end. In visual appearance, the Series 1 and Series 2 locomotives are virtually indistinguishable from each other. Their shape earned them the nickname broodblikke (breadbins) amongst train crews.Soul of A Railway, System 7, Western Transvaal, based in Johannesburg, Part 21: Witbank Line by Les Pivnic, Eugene Armer, Peter Stow and Peter Micenko. Captions 35-36. (Accessed on 4 May 2017)

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 electro-diesel locomotives were sold to Maquarie-GETX (General Electric Financing) and leased back to Spoornet for a ten-year period which was to expire in 2008. Of the Class 10E, Series 1, numbers to were included in this leasing deal.

Works numbers The Class 10E1, Series 1 GEC works numbers are listed in the table. +Class 10E1, Series 1Loco no.Worksno.10-051 5659 10-052 5660 10-053 5661 10-054 5662 10-055 5663 10-056 5664 10-057 5665 10-058 5666 10-059 5667 10-060 5668 10-061 5669 10-062 5670 10-063 5671 10-064 5672 10-065 5673 10-066 5674 10-067 5675 10-068 5676 10-069 5677 10-070 5678 10-071 5679 10-072 5680 10-073 5681 10-074 5682 10-075 5683 10-076 5684 10-077 5685 10-078 5686 10-079 5687 10-080 5688 10-081 5689 10-082 5690 10-083 5691 10-084 5692 10-085 5693 10-086 5694 10-087 5695 10-088 5696 10-089 5697 10-090 5698 10-091 5699 10-092 5700 10-093 5701 10-094 5702 10-095 5703 10-096 5704 10-097 5705 10-098 5706 10-099 5707 10-100 5708

Liveries All the Class 10E1, Series 1 locomotives were delivered in the SAR red oxide livery with signal red buffer beams and cowcatchers and a yellow V stripe on the ends, folded over to a horizontal stripe below the side windows. The number plates on the sides were mounted without the traditional three-stripe yellow wings. In the late 1990s many were repainted in the Spoornet blue livery with outline numbers on the long hood sides and with a yellow and blue chevron pattern on the buffer beams and cowcatchers. After 2008 in the Transnet Freight Rail (TFR) era, several were repainted in the TFR red, green and yellow livery.Soul of A Railway, System 7, Western Transvaal, based in Johannesburg, Part 9. South-Eastwards as far as Volksrust (2nd part) by Les Pivnic. Caption 4. (Accessed on 11 April 2017)

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