Plinthed on the main concourse of Durban Station is the little 0-4-0 locomotive "Natal", the locomotive that started it all off in South Africa in 1860. Col André Kritzinger, a fellow South African and RailPictures.Net contributor, has done the most amazing research work on all the South African locomotives on Wikipedia (the free online encyclopedia) and I quote his text on the story of Natal from that source: "The Natal Railway Company 0-4-0WT "Natal" of 1860 is a South African steam locomotive from the pre-Union era in the Natal Colony.
The first locomotive to run in revenue service in South Africa, the Natal Railway Company’s engine Natal, was landed at Durban Harbour on 13 May 1860 and made its inaugural run during the official opening of the first operating railway in South Africa on 26 June 1860. It was, however, not the first locomotive to arrive in South Africa, having been denied that honour by nine engines in the Cape Colony. These were Blackie, the 0-4-0T construction locomotive that arrived in Cape Town in September 1859, and the eight 0-4-2 tender locomotives of the Cape Town Railway and Dock Company that arrived in two shipments on 20 March and 28 April 1860.
Although the Cape's construction locomotive had been used during the construction of the Cape Town-Wellington line, a project that commenced on 31 March 1859, official railway operations in the Cape only began when the first section of track of the Cape Town-Wellington line, between Fort De Knokke and Salt River in Cape Town, was officially opened on 8 February 1861.
The first locomotive to run in revenue-earning railway service in South Africa did it in Durban in the Colony of Natal. It was a small standard gauge 0-4-0 well-tank engine named Natal which was landed at Durban Harbour off the brig Cadiz on 13 May 1860. The engine arrived stripped down and was erected by Henry Jacobs, engine fitter, driver and locomotive superintendent of the Natal Railway Company, assisted by chief smith, fitter, springmaker, platelayer and head of the repair shops Alexander Davidson. A station on the Bluff was later named after Henry Jacobs.
For many years credit as the locomotive builder had been attributed to the City of London Engine Works, the London company of Robert Legg, but subsequent research showed that Robert Legg was merely the agent through whom the shipping of the locomotive to Durban was arranged. The actual manufacturer was a firm by name of Carrett, Marshall and Company of Leeds, while Robert Legg was its London agent. Further research by a member of the Railway Society of Southern Africa (RSSA) has shown that at least two of these locomotives were built, the other going to the Caribbean to work in the sugar industry.
The engine carried its water in a well tank and the coal in a locker on the footplate. A donkey pump on the coal locker fed water to the boiler. It was erected in a tarred timber shed on Market Square in Durban and was painted green, with copper coloured wheels and with the huge brass dome cover polished.
When the locomotive arrived in Durban, the railway had already been in use for some time, but until then the railway wagons were hauled by oxen. The Natal Railway’s initial rolling stock consisted of six wagons, two travelling cranes and one passenger coach.
The engine Natal arriving at Point Station on its inaugural run in June 1860. According to most publications, the official opening of the newly mechanised Natal Railway took place on Tuesday, 26 June 1860, a little more than a month after the engine arrived. The inaugural run was at 11:00 along a 2 miles (3.2 kilometres) stretch from Market Square in Durban to the newly built Point station at Durban harbour. This was followed by passenger rides for the public for the rest of the day, at a return fare of one shilling. The day’s festivities ended with a ball in the Masonic Hall.
According to the plaque on the reconstructed locomotive, however, the date of its first run was 23 June 1860. In fact, both these dates are correct since a trial run had been conducted three days before the official inauguration, on Saturday afternoon, 23 June 1860. After testing the locomotive over a short distance, the passenger coach was coupled and the train set off to the Point with the company chairman and secretary as passengers. At the Point it collected five trucks loaded with some 40 tons of sugar-mill machinery and some standing passengers.
By 25 January 1867 the line had only been extended a further 3.5 miles (5.6 kilometres) to Umgeni, from where stone, quarried from the Umgeni River, was transported to the harbour. No further railway developments took place until 1875, when the Natal Government Railways (NGR) was established. All the assets of the Natal Railway Company were taken over by the Colonial Government and became part of the NGR with effect from 1 January 1877.
Since the Government had decided to implement Cape gauge, in conformance with the railways in the Cape of Good Hope, and to extend the lines inland to Pietermaritzburg, up the north coast to Verulam and down the south coast to Isipingo, the existing tracks were regauged and the railway service life of the engine Natal came to an end after only fifteen years.
The engine Natal was then put up for sale and purchased by a Mr. Crowther, who intended to use it to drive a sawmill on his farm at Port St. Johns. He was, however, unable to make use of it since the local population labour force objected to this "devil’s machine" and embarked on a boycott, culminating in Crowther having to abandon his farm, and the engine.
In 1886 one Alex Anderson purchased the farm for sugar planting, but when he decided to use the engine to drive a sugar mill, another early example of South African rolling mass action ensued and he, too, was forced to leave.
The farm was then acquired by one Harry Cooper, who buried the engine on the banks of the Mzimvubu River and thereafter was left unmolested and proceeded to grow tobacco. He remained on the farm until 1901, when he sold it to one Sam Clarke of Umtata who converted the property into a fruit farm. By this time the actual location of the locomotive’s grave had become lost.
On 28 May 1943 the late Theo Espitalier, who had been commissioned to prepare a history of the locomotives of South Africa, managed to locate the grave of the engine Natal. The remains were excavated and transferred to Durban, arriving there on 26 June 1944, eighty-four years to the day after this engine had hauled the first train in South Africa.
The frame, the wheels, the springs, the cylinders and some odd loose parts were literally all that remained of the old locomotive. The engine was reconstructed in the Durban workshops of the South African Railways, with many missing parts having to be fashioned to approximately the original shape and size, and it was plinthed at Durban station where it was officially unveiled by the Mayor of Durban, Senator S.J. Smith, on 9 September 1946. Even though it was not a true reconstruction in every sense of the word, it was sufficiently close to the original to give one a good idea of what the engine must have looked like on the day the South African Railways was born in 1860."
Photos taken in the Durban area, from the PRASA / Metrorail yards just North of Durban Station to Rossburgh Station including the Bayhead yards and along the Esplanade, Maydon Wharf and around Durban Harbour.
