South African Class K 4-6-4T

The South African Railways Class K 4-6-4T was a class of seven side-tank steam locomotives with the Hudson wheel arrangement, built in 1914 by the North British Locomotive Company for the Manila Railroad Company in the Philippine Islands. Wartime difficulties in delivering them, together with a critical shortage of locomotives on the South African Railways, led NBL to offer them for sale to South Africa, which bought them and took delivery in 1917, numbering them 347 to 353. They had inclined cylinders outside the plate frames, Walschaerts valve gear, superheaters and Stone's Patent louvre spark arrestors, and were the first locomotives in South Africa with exhaust steam injectors. Shedded at Braamfontein and working the Reef's suburban services between Randfontein and Springs, they proved extremely useful because they were free steaming and accelerated rapidly, and the last were withdrawn and scrapped in 1938.