names migrated to other engines and classes, several eventually ending up on Class 25NC locomotives. Other names were also added later and, for example, by 1969 no. 3229 bore the name Springs. Service The new class soon formed the bulk of the motive power on the lines from Touws River to Beaufort West and from De Aar to Welverdiend via Kimberley and Klerksdorp. When new, a few Class 23s were briefly allocated to Braamfontein to haul the Union Limited and other Cape express passenger trains from Johannesburg, and the Class 16DA and Class 16E were transferred to Bloemfontein. Since the electric turntable at Braamfontein could not accommodate the locomotive and its long Type EW tender, engines coming in from Klerksdorp had to detach at Johannesburg station and run light to India Junction near Germiston to be turned on the triangular junction. The Braamfontein Class 23s were therefore soon transferred to the Cape Northern System and Braamfontein was provided with Class 15Fs that could fit onto its turntable. Upon the arrival of the new Classes 25 and 25NC in 1953, the Class 23 was transferred to Bloemfontein to work south from there to Noupoort and Burgersdorp. Occasionally they worked north to Kroonstad and west across to Kimberley, but the Class 15F generally did most of that work. When ore traffic from Postmasburg to Durban began to increase in the late 1950s, caboose-working was instituted c. 1959. Block loads of manganese ore were worked by steam over the route from Postmasburg via Kimberley and Bloemfontein to Kroonstad and four block loads were dispatched from Postmasburg to Maydon Wharf in Durban every 24 hours, seven days per week. Four crews on a pair of Class 23 locomotives with a caboose attached for crew accommodation worked in 21-day cycles out of Bloemfontein. The crews were supposed to work eight hours on and eight hours off, but by agreement they usually worked twelve-hour shifts instead. Each caboose-working cycle began with the picking up of a string of 34 empty hopper wagons and a guard's van in Bloemfontein. These were worked through to Postmasburg, with the engines recoaling at Kamfersdam outside Kimberley. At Postmasburg they picked up 34 loaded hopper wagons and a guard's van, an approximate load of 2,700 tons, and worked all the way through to Kroonstad, where the loads were re-marshalled into 1,500 ton bites for the 1 in 66 (1½%) grades east