CGR 0-4-0ST 1874

CGR 0-4-0ST 1874

300px Cape Government Railways 0-4-0ST of 1874, no. M14

Type and origin Power type Steam Designer Manning Wardle & Company Builder Manning Wardle & Company Serial number 483 Build date 1874

Specifications Configuration 0-4-0ST (Four-coupled) Driver axle 2nd coupled axle Gauge 3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm) Cape gauge Adhesive weight Loco weight w/o Fuel type Coal Boiler:  • Firebox type Round-top Cylinders Two Valve gear Stephenson Couplers Bell link-and-pin

Career Operators Cape Government Railways Number in class 1 Numbers M14 Official name Possibly Mliss Delivered 1874 First run 1874

The Cape Government Railways 0-4-0ST of 1874 was a South African steam locomotive from the pre-Union era in the Cape of Good Hope.

In 1874, a single Cape gauge saddle-tank locomotive with a 0-4-0 wheel arrangement was placed in service by the contractors to the Port Elizabeth and Uitenhage Railway Company, for the construction of railway lines into the interior. When construction work was completed, the locomotive was taken onto the roster of the Midland System of the Cape Government Railways.

Manufacturer

In 1874, a third Cape gauge locomotive, built by Manning Wardle & Company, was delivered, through the London agents W. Bailey Hawkins & Company, to the contractors to the Port Elizabeth and Uitenhage Railway Company in Port Elizabeth. The locomotive was of a smaller design than the earlier two 0-4-0ST locomotives of 1873.

Service

Work on railway expansion from Port Elizabeth into the interior was already underway in 1874. The locomotive was put to work as construction engine on the mainline, which was being built northward from Swartkops via Barkly Bridge, Addo, Alicedale and Cookhouse to Cradock.

At some stage around April 1876, when construction work was completed to Sandflats, between Coerney and Alicedale, the locomotive was taken over from the contractors by the Cape Government Railways, along with six other contractor's locomotives, and was numbered M14 on the Midland System. In 1877, when Swallow's Cutting was being excavated near Middleton, on the section north of Alicedale, the locomotive was transported to the construction site by government bullock cart. This line reached Cookhouse in 1880.

Locomotive named Mliss

Reference has been made in literature to a locomotive named Mliss. In an Uitenhage centenary publication, the first three construction locomotives on the Midland System are described as two engines, named Pioneer and Little Bess which each weighed 14 tons, and a third engine, named Mliss after "one of Bret Harte's charming heroines", which was imported about the same time and which weighed only eight tons.

To date the engine Mliss could not be positively identified. While no. M14 is the most likely candidate, too little is known as yet about the engine itself to positively identify it as Mliss.

Drawing

Since the only known existing picture of this locomotive is heavily touched up, the drawing by Leith Paxton below, based on this picture, illustrates better what this locomotive may have looked like.

• CGR 0-4-0ST 1874 no. M14 drawing.jpg

  Drawing of Cape Government Railways 0-4-0ST of 1874, no. M14