Johannesburg Station was enlarged and remodelled in 1932 when the world, including South Africa, was suffering a major depression.  This unfortunately had a serious effect on the planned aesthetics of the main entrance to the station on De Villiers Street facing Eloff Street.  The artists impression below shows what had been planned as opposed to what eventuated (see photo) due to the depression. 

Since the highly informative and previous SAR & H Magazine is a source of so much historical information on our PAST Railways, I thought it rather fitting to include some information on the magazine itself.  In doing so, we open with a typical cover of the magazine in the 1930s followed by a descriptive article from the same period and then, a few ‘Contents’ pages prior to 1920 are presented to show how diverse and interesting the contents were in those long-gone days early in the previous century.

The magazine cover below, shows an artist's impression of a class 15CB working a passenger train in the Cape on the main line to the north.

The next topic is very historic – it covers the inauguration of main line electric traction in Natal in 1925 and is presented as ‘Milestones in History’ on railways in South Africa.  Steam traction is not forgotten because it also records a test trip on the 16th of January 1925, with train No.72 being test-hauled from Ladysmith to Van Reenen with the Class GA Garratt No.1649 - later renumbered 2140. This test trip was actually preceded on the 6th of January when the class GA hauled a coal train on the heavily graded line between Ladysmith and Harrismith.

In 1927 the SAR & H placed its first dynamometer car in service, No.60. The instruments and underframe were supplied by the U.S. Baldwin Locomotive Company and the body was built and fitted in the SAR’s Workshops in Durban. Dr. M.M. Loubser provides a description of the vehicle, below the diagram.

Dynamometer car No.60 served the SAR locomotive engineers valiantly for 33 years but in 1960, she was replaced by the brand-new Swiss-made ‘Amsler’ dynamometer car No.15073.

In the 1970’s, the SA Railway Museum had taken possession of No.60 for display in the planned major Museum and was stabled at the Krugersdorp (Millsite) Loco Depot, having been fully restored by the CME’s staff. Vandals reduced it to a wreck, destroying all the effort put into her restoration by the CME’s staff. As a poor consolation, the planned major Museum never materialised as was planned. The new car N.15073 is pictured below in its original livery of 'Imperial Brown' but the photo collage below shows how she changed colour over her service life.  Whether she has survived to the present day, is unknown.

The year 1928 witnessed a major re-organisation of the SAR & H Administration – the articles below spell out what took place.

The next group of inserts is a mixed bag of new rolling stock placed in service between 1922 and 1929. The interesting aspect of this group is that, way back in 1922, the SAR was already adding steel-bodied main line coaches to its rolling stock register.  In spite of this, steel-bodied coaches didn’t become standard until the early 1960's.

Moving on to the ‘Round in Nine’ rail tours organised by the SAR & H, I have purposely left a tiny, but humorous, snippet dealing with railways in Melbourne, Australia.

The Royal Tour of South Africa in 1925 by ‘H.R.H. The Prince of Wales’ on the SAR, is the subject of the next extract from the SAR & H Magazine. 

This is one of several visits to South Africa by members of the British Royal family.

Turning the clock back to the year 1924 – the year of the British Empire Exhibition in London – referred to in short as the BEE – this has nothing to do with political events in South Africa in the late 1990s.

Mr. W.A.J. Day succeeded Mr. A.G. Watson as Chief Mechanical Engineer on 26 March 1936 and he continued in the footsteps of his predecessor, even to the point of making notable improvements to some of Mr. Watsons designs – notably the class 19C improved to the class 19D; the class 15E improved to the class 15F – the SAR’s most prolific class of main line steam engine.  Even more impressive were his original designs for the class 23 4-8-2 main line engines that at one time dominated the upper reaches of the Cape Main Line and his Garratt design for the class GM which would form the main class employed on the Johannesburg – Zeerust line. The GM also provided the basic design for the classes GMA and GMAM which would follow after WW2. 

A few photographs of Mr. W.A.J. Day’s classes 23 and GM provide an appropriate addition to this segment of the Miscellany. The first photo shows the evolution of steam locomotive design between 1904 and 1937 on the SAR – a class 1 to a class 23.

When the class 23 locomotives were under construction in Germany in 1937, the streamlining of engines was popular in Europe, the UK and America. The builders were asked to submit the cost etc., of streamlining a few of the 23s which would be working on the Cape Main Line.  The builder’s response was £500 per locomotive and an increase in weight of over 2 tons per engine.  The idea was dropped due to the maximum speed on the SAR being set at 55 mph on the 3ft 6in gauge. Ironically, in actual practice, the official maximum speed was often exceeded – strictly off the record of course! Here is an official drawing of the proposed streamlining.

Something of a mystery occurred back in 1938/9 when the class 23s were delivered from their German builders.  Some of the engines were fitted with handrails from the front footplate to the side running boards, while others were delivered with ‘Wagner’ smoke deflectors. Makers' photos show both versions complete in their Works in Germany before delivery. Then we had the earlier case of a single class 15E fitted with ‘Wagner’ smoke deflectors while all her sisters were delivered without them.  

Initially, there seems to have been a measure of uncertainty, whether to fit them or not. The photos show both versions, but it is common knowledge that once in service in South Africa, the ‘Wagner’ smoke deflector eventually became standard equipment. Both versions were put into service on the Cape Main Line - in the two photos hereunder - top - a class 23 at Braamfontein Loco Depot on turnaround from Kimberley and below that, a sister with deflectors in Cape Town.

The SAR & H was justly proud of its Catering Department - even back in the 1920’s. Here is a description of the Department in those years.

While on the topic of SAR & H Catering, the dining cars in use over the passage of time, have always been of attractive design.  In 1942/3, new cars were built in the Pretoria Railway Workshops which would have been air-conditioned as well, but WW2 decided otherwise.  Those cars completed during the WW 2 were particularly attractive in modern design and are pictured below in various guises – new out of the workshops; staffed by female stewards during the war years and post-war, with male stewards and dressed for Christmas.