Frateschi South African Railways SAR Class34 Diesel Locomotive

The South African Railways Class 34-000 of 1971 is a diesel-electric locomotive.

Between July 1971 and March 1973, the South African Railways placed 125 Class 34-000 General Electric type U26C diesel-electric locomotives in service.

As built, the GE Classes 34-000, 34-400 and 34-900 locomotives were visually indistinguishable from each other. The Class 34-500 locomotives could be visually distinguished from the other series by the air conditioning units mounted on their cab roofs and initially when it was still a feature unique to them, by their running board mounted handrails. At some stage during the mid-1980s, all Class 34-000, 34-400 and 34-500 locomotives had saddle filters installed across the long hood, mounted just to the rear of the screens behind the cab on the sides. Since then, Class 34-900 locomotives could be distinguished from the older models by the absence of the saddle filter.

GE Class 34-000s work on most mainlines and some branch lines in the central, western, southern and southeastern parts of the country. Some eventually joined the Class 34-500 on the 861-kilometre long (535-mile) Sishen-Saldanha Orex line to haul export ore from the open cast iron mines at Sishen near Kathu in the Northern Cape to the harbour at Saldanha in the Western Cape, until they gradually began to be replaced by new Class 43-000 locomotives in 2012.

On the Orex line, GE Class 34 series diesel-electric locomotives ran consisted to Class9E or Class 15E electric locomotives to haul the 342-wagon iron ore trains. Each wagon has a 100-ton capacity, and the trains are at least 3.72 kilometres (2.31 miles) in length, powered by mixed consists of Class 9E and Class 15E electric, GE U26C Class 34-000, 34-400, 34-500 and 34-900 and from 2012, GE C30ACi Class 43-000 diesel-electric locomotives. In South Africa, mixed electric and diesel-electric consists are unique to the iron ore line.

• Analog
• Series 900
• ERA IV

Scale: H0