The South African Railways Class 19 4-8-2 of 1928 was a steam locomotive. In 1928, the South African Railways placed four Class 19 steam locomotives with a Mountain type wheel arrangement in service. They were the forerunners of a family of light-rail branch line engines which would remain in service until the very end of the steam era. One of them was later reboilered with a Watson Standard boiler and reclassified to Class 19R. Manufacturer Until 1928, the bulk of light branch line traffic on the South African Railways (SAR) was hauled by Classes 6, 7 and 8 locomotives. Due to the increase in traffic during the late 1920s, the need arose for a new and heavier type of branch line locomotive. At the request and under the direction of Colonel F.R. Collins DSO, Chief Mechanical Engineer (CME) of the SAR from 1922 to 1929, the basic design of the new 4-8-2 steam locomotive was done by Research and Test Engineer M.M. Loubser, himself later to be appointed as CME from 1939 to 1949. In 1928, four locomotives were built in Germany by Berliner Maschinenbau AG (BMAG), the former L. Schwartzkopff. They were delivered and placed in service during that same year. Characteristics The locomotives, numbered in the range from 1366 to 1369, were in essence a lighter branch line development of the earlier Classes 15CB and 15CA heavy 4-8-2 mainline locomotives and proved to be extremely successful. They were approximately 50% more powerful than the Class 8 family and also had better speed with their larger diameter coupled wheels. They were superheated, built on bar frames and their piston valves were actuated by Walschaerts valve gear. A feature which was to be followed for all subsequent SAR locomotives was their relatively large firegrate area of . The round-topped firebox had flexible stays fitted in the breaking zones. Three support brackets tied the boiler barrel to the main bar frames. As far as practicable, mountings were fixed to a steam stand on the firebox top and fitted with extensions to the spindles to carry the handles inside the cab, within easy reach of the enginemen. The cylinders drove on the second pair of coupled wheels. The locomotives were fitted with the single slide-bar type piston crossheads, popular in Europe but prone to rapid wear under South African conditions. The valve spindle crossheads were screwed to the ends of the valve