South African Class 37-000

The Class type GT26M2C diesel-electric locomotive was designed for the South African Railways (SAR) by General Motors Electro-Motive Division (GM-EMD) and built by General Motors South Africa (GMSA) in Port Elizabeth. Equipped with later model GM-EMD D31 traction motors instead of the earlier GM-EMD D29B, it is a more powerful version of the GM-EMD type GT26MC Classes 34-200, 34-600 and 34-800. ==Service==

The Class locomotives work on mainlines in the northern and northeastern parts of the country. Most of them are shedded at Ermelo and Lydenburg in Mpumalanga and at Richards Bay in KwaZulu-Natal. They work on the Belfast-Steelpoort line and on the manganese route between the Mpumalanga Lowveld and KwaZulu-Natal from Komatipoort through Swaziland to Empangeni and Richards Bay. Locomotive no. 37-044 was re-geared for higher speed and painted in a maroon livery with gray sills and understructure, yellow buffer beams and golden yellow bands all around the body, interrupted on the sides by the inscription The Sun City EXPRESS in white. Although initially well received, the train began to suffer from declining patronage and was eventually cancelled from Monday 30 March 1992, three years after its launch. ==Rebuilding to Class 39-000==

In 2005, a project commenced to rebuild new Class type GM-EMD GT26CU-3 diesel-electric locomotives for Spoornet from Classes , and locomotives, using suitable frames from wrecked locomotives. Two companies were invited to produce prototypes for the project. Number 39-251 One of these companies was Electro-Motive Sibanye, a joint venture between the newly established Electro-Motive Diesel (EMD) and Sibanye Trade and Services, a South African Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) company dealing with locomotives and spare parts. The Sibanye venture produced only one locomotive, rebuilt from Class no. in 2008 and numbered . However, the locomotive was tested and rejected by Transnet, reportedly due to poor quality. Furthermore, when serious tender irregularities came to light, the locomotive rebuilding deal between Transnet and Electro-Motive Sibanye was cancelled. Although it was initially painted in the red Transnet Freight Rail livery, no. never worked for Transnet and was later reported as sold to RRL, a company which came about out of the abortive joint venture between EMD and Sibanye. RRL is based at a workshop in the old Pretoria Steel Works complex and several of its locomotives are active in the gold fields around Welkom in the Free State. No. remained in the possession of Sibanye Trade and Services and was renumbered . It was later hired or leased to the Khumani iron ore mine in the Northern Cape and renumbered again to LC9-1. ==Works numbers==

The Class builder's works numbers and the one rebuilding are listed in the table. ==Liveries==

The Class 37-000 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 many of them began to be repainted in the Spoornet orange livery with a yellow and blue chevron pattern on the buffer beams. At least two, numbers 37-050 and 37-059, later received the Spoornet maroon livery. In the late 1990s a few were repainted in the Spoornet blue livery with outline numbers on the long hood sides. After 2008 in the Transnet Freight Rail (TFR) era, some were repainted in the TFR red, green and yellow livery. ==Illustration==

File:SAR Class 37-000 37-020.JPG|No. 37-020 in Spoornet blue with outline numbers at Empangeni, 14 August 2007 File:Class 37-000 37-076.jpg|No. 37-076 in Transnet Freight Rail livery at Koedoespoort, 29 September 2015 ==References==