page_title: 2-8-4
section_title: South Africa
hierarchical_section_title: 2-8-4 / Usage / South Africa
caption_attribution_description: English: Imperial Military Railways 2-8-4T "Western Australian" no. 100Later Central South African Railways Class C no. 203
context_page_description: Under the Whyte notation, a 2-8-4 is a steam locomotive that has one unpowered leading axle, usually in a leading truck, followed by four powered and coupled driving axles, and two unpowered trailing axles, usually mounted in a bogie. This locomotive type is most often referred to as a Berkshire, though the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway used the name Kanawha for their 2-8-4s. In Europe, this wheel arrangement was mostly seen in mainline passenger express locomotives and, in certain countries, in tank locomotives.
context_section_description: In 1900, during the Second Boer War, the Imperial Military Railways experienced a shortage of locomotives and six K class Berkshire tank locomotives, destined for the Western Australian Government Railways, were diverted to South Africa where they were known as the Western Australians. In 1902, they came onto the roster of the Central South African Railways and were designated CSAR Class C. By 1912, when the renumbering onto the South African Railways (SAR) roster was implemented, these locomotives were considered obsolete and were not included in the SAR classification and renumbering list, but recommended for scrapping even though they were still less than twelve years old.
  In 1949 and 1950, the SAR placed 100 Class 24 Berkshires in branch line service, which included the whole of South West Africa (Namibia). They were acquired to replace the ageing fleet of Class 6 and Class 7 locomotives on light 45 pounds per yard (22 kilograms per metre) rail.
  The locomotive was designed by Dr. M.M. Loubser, Chief Mechanical Engineer of the SAR from 1939 to 1949. It had a one-piece steel main frame that was cast integrally with the cylinders, including the cylinder hind covers, smokebox support frame, stays and various brackets, all of which would normally be separate items riveted or bolted onto the frame. Advantages of this arrangement were reduced maintenance and less time spent in shops. It was the first South African steam locomotive to be built using this technique. They were built with Watson Standard no. 1 boilers and they used Type MY Torpedo tenders that ran on three-axle Buckeye bogies.
  It was the only Berkshire type to see service on the SAR. Most of them went to South West Africa, where 55 of them would remain in operation until strengthening of the track and the introduction of diesel traction made them available to be employed elsewhere. They were withdrawn in the mid-1980s. Several have been preserved in running order for service on excursion trains, operated by private steam enthusiast groups in Cape Town and in Gauteng.
caption: CSAR Class C
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "3492", "Image ImageLength": "2739", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image XResolution": "800", "Image YResolution": "800", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS5 Macintosh", "Image DateTime": "2013:09:04 17:29:11", "Image ExifOffset": "232", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "382", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5329", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3492", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2739"}