The South African Railways Class of 1974 is a diesel-electric locomotive. Between November 1974 and August 1976, the South African Railways placed 150 Class General Motors Electro-Motive Division type GT18MC diesel-electric locomotives in service. In 1975, one more Class locomotive was built for AECI in Modderfontein, Johannesburg. Manufacturer The Class type GT18MC diesel-electric locomotive was designed for the South African Railways (SAR) by General Motors Electro-Motive Division (GM-EMD). The first 25 units were built by GM-EMD and imported, delivered by November 1974 and numbered in the range from to . The remainder were built in two batches by General Motors South Africa (GMSA) in Port Elizabeth, with 75 units being delivered between 1974 and 1975, numbered in the range from to , and another fifty between 1975 and August 1976, numbered in the range from to . While the first GMSA batch was being built, an order for one Class GT18MC locomotive was received from AECI in Modderfontein, Johannesburg. Since it required urgent delivery, no. (works no. ) from the SAR order was delivered to AECI and became their no. 2, named "A.J. de Beer". The AECI locomotive, works no. , then went to the SAR as no. . Class 35 series GE and GM-EMD designs The Class 35 locomotive family consists of five sub-classes, the General Electric (GE) Classes and and the GM-EMD Classes , and . Both manufacturers also produced locomotives for the South African Classes 33, 34 and 36. Distinguishing features The GM-EMD Class and are visually indistinguishable from each other. Service South African Railways The Class 35 family is South Africa’s standard branchline diesel-electric locomotive. GM-EMD Class were designed for light rail conditions across difficult terrain and they work on most branch lines in the central, eastern, northern and north-eastern parts of the country. Zambia Between October 1978 and May 1993, Zambia Railways (ZR) hired locomotives to solve its chronic shortages in motive power, mainly from South Africa but at times also from Zaire, Zimbabwe, the TAZARA Railway and even the Zambian Copper Mines. In Zambia, the South African locomotives were mainly used on goods trains between Livingstone and Kitwe, sometimes in tandem with a ZR locomotive and occasionally also on passenger trains. The first period of hire lasted from October 1978 until about April 1981. Locomotives were selected from a pool of engines in the Classes 33-400, and which were allocated by the Railways for