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South African Railways steam locomotive class 16CR No 825 at the head of an up passenger train leaving Despatch in suburban Port Elizabeth, Cape Province, South Africa.
Image by express000
This digitised image was obtained from a 120 size black and white film using a Pentaz 6x7mm camera. Photographed on 11 July, 1974.
South African Railways steam locomotive class 16CR No 825 at the head of an up passenger train leaving Despatch in suburban Port Elizabeth, Cape Province, South Africa.
During 1919 ten Class 16C steam locomotives with a 4-6-2 Pacific wheel arrangement were placed in passenger train service. Another twenty were placed in service in 1922.
The Class 16C 4-6-2 Pacific locomotive was designed by D.A. Hendrie, Chief Mechanical Engineer (CME) of the South African Railways (SAR) from 1910 to 1922, and built by the North British Locomotive Company (NBL) in Glasgow, Scotland. Ten locomotives were delivered in 1919, numbered in the range from 812 to 821. A second order followed in 1921 for another twenty locomotives, numbered in the range from 822 to 841 when they were delivered in 1922.[5]
They were identical to the Class 16 and Class 16B predecessors in most respects, except that Hendrie added a combustion chamber to the boiler, similar to that of the Class 15A. The presence of the combustion chamber was visible externally as an extension of the Belpaire firebox hump.
The Class 16C were all delivered with 60 inches (1,520 millimetres) driving wheels. Their as delivered boiler operating pressure was set at 190 pounds per square inch (1,310 kilopascals). Two of them, numbers 821 and 825, were later equipped with 63 inches (1,600 millimetres) driving wheels, similar to the modification that was also done on some Class 16D and Class 16DA locomotives. In the process their boiler operating pressure was raised to 200 pounds per square inch (1,380 kilopascals) in order to not have their tractive effort reduced by the larger driving wheels. Both remained classified as Class 16C.
Eventually all thirty Class 16C locomotives, including numbers 821 and 825 with their larger 63 inches (1,600 millimetres) driving wheels, were reboilered with Watson Standard no. 2B boilers and reclassified to Class 16CR. In the process of reboilering the main difference between the Class 16B and Class 16C, Hendrie’s combustion chamber behind the 16C boiler, disappeared and Class 16B locomotives that were reboilered with Watson Standard boilers were also reclassified to Class 16CR.[
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Alan Straton
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