It’s a beautiful sunrise in Pietermaritzburg as 34-841 / 34-629 cross the Pentrich Viaduct, having just left Masons Mill (their depot) for the run through to their daily shunting duties in the yard at Cato Ridge, about 20km away. 34-841 is in the old “Maroon” Spoornet livery, a livery that is not too often seen these days, but one that proved to be very serviceable.
As always, looking to Col. André Kritzinger’s Wikipedia reference work on all the South African locomotives for some technical details, both the Class 34 (600) and Class 34 (800) series were built by General Motors South Africa as model / type GM-EMD GT26MC. They entered service in 1976 and 1978 respectively. A total of 100 of the (600) series and 59 of the (800) series were built.
