Always a pleasure to see this beautiful old lady, E1101, out and about and even more of a thrill to see her down the KwaZulu Natal South Coast at Pennington Station. Over a four year period, from 1966 to 1969, 225 of these Class 5E1 Series 5 dual cab / bi-directional electric locomotives entered service in South Africa. All of them had been withdrawn from active service by 2007. A few of them were saved from the cutting torches of the scrappers, with Rovos Rail acquiring nine of them and Spoornet (the predecessor to Transnet) retaining two of them, E1101 & E1102, which are now based at Danskraal / Ladysmith. Both of them were extensively modified and they are now used for driver & road knowledge training, in tandem with the coach you see behind E1101 in this photo, Coach 40117, which is equipped at both ends with driving controls and a classroom type set up for training purposes.
