South African Class 34-200

The Class 34-200 type GT26MC diesel-electric locomotive was designed and built for the South African Railways (SAR) by General Motors Electro-Motive Division (GM-EMD) at their McCook plant in Illinois. Fifty locomotives were delivered between October 1971 and March 1972, numbered in the range from to . ==Class 34 series==

GE and GM-EMD designs The Class 34 locomotive family consists of seven series, the General Electric (GE) Classes, South African Class 34-400|, South African Class 34-500| (also known as ex Iscor) and South African Class 34-000|, and the GM-EMD Classes , South African Class 34-600| and South African Class 34-800|. Both manufacturers also produced locomotives for the South African Classes 33, 35 and 36. ==Service==

South Africa The Class 34-200 were mostly destined for use in the Cape Midlands, but was imported through Durban harbour since Port Elizabeth harbour did not have facilities to handle these large mainline diesel-electrics. The locomotives arrived fully assembled and were hauled inland from Durban Harbour in blocks of 16 to 18 units, each worked by four new Class 6E1 units. Reports at the time indicated that the locomotives would be worked directly to the Cape Midlands via Bethlehem, Kroonstad and Bloemfontein to Port Elizabeth. Since at least one of these loads was photographed between Germiston and Pretoria, it is more likely that they first went to Koedoespoort in Pretoria for commissioning before being released for service on the Cape Midlands. Sheltam One of the Class locomotives, no. , was sold to Sheltam where it became their no. 4, having since been renumbered to 2601. Sheltam is a locomotive hire and repair company which undertakes complete operating contracts and maintenance contracts, based at the Douglas Colliery near Witbank in Mpumalanga. By the turn of the millennium, Sheltam locomotives were operating at Randfontein Estates Gold Mine in Gauteng, in Mpumalanga at Douglas and Vandyksdrift Collieries and at SAPPI, Ngodwana. They also operated on Spoornet's Newcastle-Utrecht branch in KwaZulu-Natal and for a while on Kei Rail in the Eastern Cape. Outside South Africa, they operate on the BBR, NLL and RSZ lines through Zimbabwe and Zambia and in the Congo. ==Works numbers==

The Class 34-200 builder's works numbers and known deployment are listed in the table. ==Liveries==

The Class 34-200 were all delivered in the SAR Gulf Red livery with signal red buffer beams, yellow side stripes on the long hood sides and a yellow V on each end. In the 1990s they began to be repainted in the Spoornet orange livery with a yellow and blue chevron pattern on the buffer beams. ==Illustration==

The main picture shows the right hand side of no. in the Spoornet orange livery. The left side and the NLPI LOG livery as applied to Class locomotives are illustrated below. File:SAR Class 34-200 34-226.JPG|No. 34–226 in Spoornet orange livery at Vryheid yard, KwaZulu-Natal, 16 August 2007 File:SAR Class 34-200 34-209.JPG|No. 34–209 with NLPI LOG emblems at Koedoespoort, Pretoria, 30 September 2009 ==References==