South Africa’s first locomotives

The South Africa of the late 1850s was an economic and industrial backwater with limited growth prospects, especially when compared with other colonial outposts. Diamonds and gold, which were to drive the country’s industrial revolution, were still a long way from being discovered and, thus, the economy was primarily driven by agriculture and the merchant trade. Yet, the colonial governments of the Cape and Natal were attempting to make the most of their economic prospects, limited as they may have been, by facilitating steam rail access between the ports and their respective market centres and beyond – to the main agricultural hubs.

As has been stated in previous instalments of this column, the construction of iron rail lines was initiated in both Durban and Cape Town in 1859, with the first railway – between the Point and Durban – being officially opened in June 1860. However, given the complete lack of industrial engineering facilities in either colony, South Africa’s first locomotives had to be imported from Britain, the nation then at the forefront of the industrial revolution.

The very first steam locomotive to be imported was a small 0-4-0 well-tank engine, eventually nicknamed Blackie. It was built in 1859 in Leith, Scotland, by R&W Hawthorn, one of Britain’s most prominent steam locomotive manufacturers of the nineteenth century. The locomotive’s two cylinders were situated inside the frame, and it was equipped with the Stephenson valve gear – a simple mechanism widely used in the operation of steam engines – and its feedwater pumps were activated by piston crossheads. It initially had an open cab, but a roof was installed some years later to protect the driver from the Cape’s frightful winter weather.
It was imported by Messrs E&J Pickering, which was appointed by the Cape Town Railway & Dock Company as the main contractor for the Cape Town–Wellington railway line, and arrived in Cape Town on September 8, 1859.

Blackie was primarily used to assist in the construction of that 72 km railway, although it remained in the service of Cape Government Railways, hauling carriages between Cape Town and Wellington until October 1873. Thereafter, it was rebuilt to a 0-4-2T configuration and shipped to the Eastern Cape. It was used in the Kowie harbour construction project, at Port Alfred, until 1883, by which time it had become completely unserviceable and was abandoned on a siding.

Fortunately, Blackie’s fate was not to be confined to South Africa’s industrial waste heap – in 1897, it was repaired, repainted and railed to Grahamstown, where it was put on display as South Africa’s first steam locomotive engine, as part of the great South African Industrial and Arts Exhibition of 1898. Following that exhibition, the engine was placed in storage until 1913, when the newly established South African Railways decided to put it on display at Cape Town station. While it was relocated to the Salt River Engineering Works for a time, on the basis of an investigation by the Historical Monuments Commission, it was decided that Blackie should be returned to the station and plinthed as a permanent historical feature. It was subsequently proclaimed a national monument on April 14, 1936.

While Blackie may have the distinction of being the country’s first steam locomotive, the first engine to be used on an official public railway was the Natal. Originally thought to have been built by Robert Legg, of London, recent investigations have revealed that the engine was manufactured by Leeds-based Carrett Marshall, a company that was more renowned in its day for producing steam-driven road vehicles. Like Blackie, the Natal was also a 24 hp 0-4-0 small well-tank engine. It carried its water in a well-tank and the coal in a locker on the footplate, while a donkey pump on the coal locker fed water to the boiler. The chimney had an inverted conical shape and the wide opening was covered by wire mesh, to serve as a spark arrester.

The Natal arrived in Durban a full nine months after Blackie, on May 13, 1860, and was reassembled just in time for its inaugural run between the Point and the town on June 23.

The most interesting aspect of that locomotive’s history is that, from the day of its inaugural run, it was mired by local inhabitant superstition. In an account of the railway’s opening ceremony, George Russell, an avid commentator on the life and happenings in Durban between 1850 and 1860, recorded the comments made by local Zulu residents thus: “Wow! (sic) But it is a strange beast. Its belly is full of fire and vapour . . . It is like a rhinoceros, but it blows smoke and sparks through its horn. “Truly it is stronger than the elephant, for it pulls many wagon loads . . . Beyond doubt, it is made by the witchcraft of the white men.”

When Natal Government Railways upgraded the track to a 3 ft 6 in Cape gauge, the locomotive became redundant and was, consequently, shipped to Port St Johns, where it was intended to be used to work a sawmill upstream on the Mzimvubu river.

However, local workers objected to the use of what they called the “devil’s machine”. Such was the boycotters’ vehemence that two consecutive owners of the farm, a Mr Crowther and a Mr Anderson, were both compelled to abandon the property after attempting to use the engine.

The next owner of the farm, Harry Cooper, decided to bury the engine on the banks of the Mzimvubu river, which satisfied his workers, and he was able to successfully transform the property into a tobacco plantation.

The Natal remained buried for the next half century – until May 1843, when Theo Espitalier managed to locate the ‘grave’ and excavate the engine as part of a commission to prepare a history of the locomotives of South Africa.

The frame, wheels, springs, cylinders and some odd loose parts was all that remained of the old locomotive. The parts were transported to Durban, where the locomotive was reconstructed into its original state, with many missing parts having to be fashioned in the original shape and size. Despite the fact that it was not an exact reconstruction, it was sufficiently close to the original locomotive to represent what it may have looked like in 1860 and was subsequently plinthed at Durban station on September 9, 1946, as a permanent historical exhibit.