page_title: South African Class 7B 4-8-0
section_title: South West Africa
hierarchical_section_title: South African Class 7B 4-8-0 / Service / South West Africa
caption_attribution_description: English: Class 7B 4-8-0 on railway line repairs after the Khan River floods of 1934
context_page_description: The South African Railways Class 7B 4-8-0 of 1900 was a steam locomotive from the pre-Union era in Transvaal.
  In 1900, the Imperial Military Railways placed 25 Cape 7th Class 4-8-0 Mastodon type steam locomotives in service. In that same year, three Cape 7th Class locomotives which had been ordered by the Pretoria-Pietersburg Railway were also placed in service. All these locomotives were taken onto the Central South African Railways roster at the end of the Second Boer War in 1902. In 1906, three of these locomotives were sold to the Natal Government Railways.
  In 1912, 26 of these 28 locomotives were assimilated into the South African Railways. They were followed in 1913 by the remaining two, which had been leased to Paulings as construction locomotives. All but one of these locomotives were renumbered and reclassified to Class 7B. In 1915, one more Cape 7th Class locomotive was obtained from the Rhodesia Railways and erroneously also designated Class 7B.
context_section_description: In 1915, shortly after the outbreak of the First World War, the German South West Africa colony was occupied by the Union Defence Forces. Since a large part of the territory's railway infrastructure and rolling stock was destroyed or damaged by retreating German forces, an urgent need arose for locomotives for use on the Cape gauge lines in that territory. In 1917, numbers 1042 to 1044, 1051 and 1052 were transferred to the Defence Department for service in South West Africa.
  These five locomotives remained in South West Africa after the war. They proved to be so successful in that territory, that more were gradually transferred there in later years. By the time the Class 24 locomotives arrived in SWA in 1949, 53 locomotives of the Class 7 family were still in use there. Most remained in SWA and were only transferred back to South Africa when the Class 32-000 diesel-electric locomotives replaced them in 1961.
caption: Class 7B on railway line repairs after the Khan River floods of 1934
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