The South African Railways Class 24 2-8-4 of 1949 is a steam locomotive. In 1949 and 1950, the South African Railways placed 100 branch line steam locomotives with a 2-8-4 Berkshire type wheel arrangement in service. Manufacturer By the late 1940s, the South African Railways (SAR) still had a comparatively large mileage of track. In South West Africa, where most of the locomotive fleet consisted of Classes 6, 7, GC and GCA, there were still hundreds of miles of track. Considering the increasing age of these locomotives, the options were either to relay these tracks with rail or to obtain new light branch line locomotives suitable for use on the existing track. The Class 24 2-8-4 Berkshire type branch line steam locomotive was designed by Dr. M.M. Loubser, Chief Mechanical Engineer (CME) of the SAR from 1939 to 1949. The locomotives were built by North British Locomotive Company (NBL) of Glasgow, who delivered 100 of them in 1949 and 1950, numbered in the range from 3601 to 3700. The cast engine main frames and the Buckeye bogies for the tenders were supplied by General Steel Castings of Eddystone, Pennsylvania. One of these locomotives, no. 3675, was the 2,000th locomotive to be built by NBL for the SAR and, to commemorate this milestone, a ceremony was conducted in Cape Town to name the locomotive Bartholomew Diaz after the Portuguese navigator Bartolomeu Dias who discovered the Cape of Good Hope in May 1488 and named it the Cape of Storms (Cabo das Tormentas). The ceremony was attended by the South African Minister of Transport and heads of departments of the SAR, as well as by the chairman and managing director of NBL. Characteristics The Class 24 had a one-piece cast-steel main frame which was cast integrally with the cylinders, including the cylinder hind covers, smokebox support frame, stays and various brackets, all of which would normally be separate items riveted or bolted onto the frames. Advantages of this arrangement are reduced maintenance and less time spent in shops. It was the first South African steam locomotive to be built using this technique. They were built with Watson Standard no. 1 boilers, while their double hopper type ashpans were specially designed to clear the four-wheeled trailing bogies. Their specially designed Type MY tenders were similar in appearance to the Type MX and the North American Vanderbilt type tenders, with cylindrical water tanks. The