South African Class 20E

The Transnet Freight Rail Class 20E of 2013 is a South African dual-voltage electric locomotive, able to run under both 3 kV DC and 25 kV AC overhead wire. The order was for ninety-five locomotives. The first ten were built in China by the Zhuzhou Electric Locomotive Company, a subsidiary of the China South Locomotive and Rolling Stock Corporation (CSR), and the first of them, number 20-001, was rolled out at the factory in Changsha in Hunan on 20 August 2013. The contract was Zhuzhou's largest single foreign order of electric locomotives to that date and provided for the export of electric locomotive manufacturing technology to South Africa, for a local production share above 60 percent. Numbers 20-011 to 20-025 were assembled at Koedoespoort from Chinese-built kits and were all in service by the end of September 2014, and the rest were built there by a consortium of CSR Zhuzhou and the South African company Matsetse Basadi. The locomotive has a welded monocoque body, AC traction motors under IGBT control, regenerative and rheostatic braking and a maximum speed of 100 km/h. Two units were painted blue for the Blue Train.