placed 36 Class 11 Mikados in service. Built by the North British Locomotive Company (NBL), it was designed by P.A. Hyde, Chief Locomotive Superintendent of the CSAR from 1902 to 1904, for goods train service on the Witwatersrand. It was superheated, with a Belpaire firebox, Walschaerts valve gear and plate frame. The Class 11 designation was retained when the CSAR was amalgamated into the SAR in 1912. In 1906, the CGR placed a single experimental 2-8-2 in service, designed by H.M. Beatty and built by Kitson. It was a larger version of the Cape Class 9 in all respects, also with a bar frame, Stephenson's link motion valve gear and using saturated steam. The locomotive was not classified and was simply referred to as "the Mikado". On the CGR it was exceeded in size only by the Kitson-Meyer 0-6-0+0-6-0 of 1904. At the time, it was considered as a big advance in motive power, but the design was never repeated and the Cape Mikado remained unique. In 1912, it was classified as Class Experimental 5 on the SAR. In 1917, the South African Railways placed at least four, possibly six, Mikado type steam locomotives in service. They had been built for the Chemins de Fer du Bas Congo á Katanga in the Belgian Congo and were obtained on temporary lease, to alleviate the critical shortage of locomotives as a result of the First World War's disruption of locomotive production in Europe and the United Kingdom. The Katanga Mikados, as the locomotives were known on the SAR, were all forwarded to the Belgian Congo after the war. (Also see Belgian Congo) Narrow gauge Between 1931 and 1958, 21 narrow gauge Class NG15 Mikados, developed from the Class Hd and Class NG5 of South West Africa (SWA), were acquired for the Otavi Railway in SWA. Designed by the SAR, it was built by Henschel & Son and Société Franco-Belge. A major improvement on the earlier locomotives was the use of a Krauss-Helmholtz bogie, with the leading pair of driving wheels linked to the leading pony truck. The leading driving wheels had a limited amount of side play while the axle still remained parallel to the other three driving axles at all times, thus allowing the locomotive to negotiate sharper curves than its two predecessors. When the SWA narrow gauge line was regauged to Cape gauge in 1960, all these locomotives were transferred