Talk:Durban Harbour's Sir Albert

Information on Sir Albert from John Middleton
The following is the contents of an email from John Middleton on 2 October 2013, posted here for reference.

The parts pertinent to this article are:

Notwithstanding the fact that NGR were responsible for "railway operations", it seems the Board was still responsible for the "improvement, development and maintenance of the facilities" and I suspect this required the use of locos which belonged to the Board rather than NGR.

We have concrete evidence that HE 852 was "No. 4 ALBERT" since it is shown as such in the original Hunslet engine register, it was delivered to the "Agent General for Natal - Natal Harbour Department" and NOT to the NGR. What this does suggest is that at the time (1904), the Harbour Board owned three other locomotives - presumably these were JOHN MILNE, CONGELLA and EDWARD INNES even though photos of those do not show them carrying numbers. Note that the NGR loco lists for December 1904 and 1908 (see attached) show NONE of these locos and "No. 4" was almost certainly NOT an NGR number as the NGR number 4 had been taken by a new E class in 1902 and the original 4 renumbered 504.

As for later history - see below - but Hunslet supplied a new boiler for JOHN MILNE late in 1902 or early 1903 under Hunslet order number 25377.

Later History / SAR

This is where it gets more complicated. Of the Harbour Board locos, it seems that at some point that some at least did become SAR assets, although never carrying SAR numbers, possibly when SAR&H was formed. Jim Barrows Register shows JOHN MILNE (scrapped April 1929) and EDWARD INNES (no disposal data) as passing to SAR, but no mention of CONGELLA.

One loco causing confusion is the one listed in the SAR Renumbering Lists as NGR 46 later SAR 046 (and listed as a Hunslet 0-6-0ST). Now - old No. 15 is still specifically listed on the 31 December 1908 NGR loco list - see attached. New NGR Class B locos Nos 13-33 were delivered in 1909 and clearly prompted a wholesale renumbering of the original surviving locos in that block, I suspect that old 15 is the one that became 46.

Some lists show SIR ALBERT (HE 852) as 046 but unless I see some concrete proof I am unconvinced. The Rolling Stock Register shows that loco 046 was sold to Newcastle Steel Works in January 1926, I suppose its a possibility that there were two locos "046" with the 1880 loco scrapped and SIR ALBERT taking its number but again, I can see no concrete evidence. Exactly which of the two (HE 249 / 852) went to Newcastle is still not proven.

The complete email:


 * From: John Nicholas Middleton
 * To: Andre H Kritzinger
 * Cc: The Paxtons
 * Sent: 02 October 2013 10:00 PM
 * Subject: Natal Harbour Board and NGR tanks


 * Sorry, been off radar for a few days in UK dealing with the sad events around my brothers funeral.


 * I see you have been very busy lately and I have a few comments which I will try to consolidate rather than replying on each type you've covered.


 * In general Holland created quite a lot of confusion with his "Harbour" locos chapter as many listed had nothing to do with harbours at all and were construction / yard shunters.


 * In Natal, I do not claim to have solved the riddles at all but I will present what is known as its quite a different story to that put forward by Holland.


 * Firstly the Natal Harbour Board


 * Notwithstanding the fact that NGR were responsible for "railway operations", it seems the Board was still responsible for the "improvement, development and maintenance of the facilities" and I suspect this required the use of locos which belonged to the Board rather than NGR.


 * We have concrete evidence that HE 852 was "No. 4 ALBERT" since it is shown as such in the original Hunslet engine register, it was delivered to the "Agent General for Natal - Natal Harbour Department" and NOT to the NGR. What this does suggest is that at the time (1904), the Harbour Board owned three other locomotives - presumably these were JOHN MILNE, CONGELLA and EDWARD INNES even though photos of those do not show them carrying numbers. Note that the NGR loco lists for December 1904 and 1908 (see attached) show NONE of these locos and "No. 4" was almost certainly NOT an NGR number as the NGR number 4 had been taken by a new E class in 1902 and the original 4 renumbered 504.


 * As for later history - see below - but Hunslet supplied a new boiler for JOHN MILNE late in 1902 or early 1903 under Hunslet order number 25377.


 * Now NGR


 * No. 15 - Hunslet 249 is shown in the Hunslet registers as supplied to the "Crown Agents for the Colonies - Natal". The attached NGR loco list for 31 December 1904, shows NGR No. 15 as an 1880 Hunslet 0-6-0 and thus we can be fairly certain that this loco was NGR and not Harbour Board. As with all neat theories, even this has a drawback as the attached 1882 NGR Report says "One engine has by arrangement been transferred to the Harbour Board" - so which engine was this and was it a temporary loan or permanent ?. If it was No. 15 that was transferred, it certainly came back to NGR later and we probably need more time in the Natal archives to establish exactly what happened.


 * The Neilsons are the most confusing, but were (in my view) clearly NGR rather than Harbour Board. The Neilson works list I have shows them as NGR Nos 89 to 93 and this certainly fits since the A class had reached No. 88 by 1893. The next batch of A class appeared in 1896 and were numbered 89 upwards, so the Neilsons were either renumbered or sold by the time the new A class arrived. Quite what they were used for isn't clear but I do have this one very interesting photo of one in Durban station March 1900 with the Princess Christian Hospital Train (apologies for the poor scan), so presumably NGR used them as small yard shunters.


 * Now have a look at the 31 December 1904 loco list and you will see that two of these are listed as locos 510 and 511. This doesn't seem to correlate with the SAR Rolling Stock Register which shows four - even allowing for those to include the one sold to PPR, we still have a third loco that seems to have made its way to SAR but which was not on the NGR books in 1904. By 1904 locos 1-9 had been renumbered 501-509 (Beyer Peacock / Kitson) which tends to confirm that the lower 5xx numbers were not used for the Neilsons, although as already noted there was considerable re-use of the 5xx series, so its possible (but would have to have been pre-1902). The next loco list I have is 31 December 1908 and 510 has gone with only 511 listed, so we can presumably date 510's demise as between January 1905 and December 1908.


 * Jim Barrows draft Register identifies the PPR loco as Neilsen 4482 (which was NGR 90) and then "sold to P. SMITH & Co, May 1920". I do not know who "P.Smith" was, possibly just a scrap dealer. The Register identifies 91 (Neilsen 4483) as becoming 511 later 0511 scrapped between 1912 and 1931. I don't know the validity of this data and I feel the identification of the individual locos in this batch is still open to correction. I guess this came from one of the Rolling Stock Registers but unfortunately I didn't transcribe this data.


 * My feeling is that some of the names attributed to these locos may have been later additions. For example why would a loco in Natal be named "PRETORIA" at a time of high tension just prior to the Boer War. Much more likely is that either the PPR one (or perhaps another) got to Pretoria much later and was so named. Perhaps "NATAL" was renamed "PRETORIA" again for patriotic reasons but thats just guesswork.


 * Later History / SAR


 * This is where it gets more complicated. Of the Harbour Board locos, it seems that at some point that some at least did become SAR assets, although never carrying SAR numbers, possibly when SAR&H was formed. Jim Barrows Register shows JOHN MILNE (scrapped April 1929) and EDWARD INNES (no disposal data) as passing to SAR, but no mention of CONGELLA.


 * One loco causing confusion is the one listed in the SAR Renumbering Lists as NGR 46 later SAR 046 (and listed as a Hunslet 0-6-0ST). Now - old No. 15 is still specifically listed on the 31 December 1908 NGR loco list - see attached. New NGR Class B locos Nos 13-33 were delivered in 1909 and clearly prompted a wholesale renumbering of the original surviving locos in that block, I suspect that old 15 is the one that became 46.


 * Some lists show SIR ALBERT (HE 852) as 046 but unless I see some concrete proof I am unconvinced. The Rolling Stock Register shows that loco 046 was sold to Newcastle Steel Works in January 1926, I suppose its a possibility that there were two locos "046" with the 1880 loco scrapped and SIR ALBERT taking its number but again, I can see no concrete evidence. Exactly which of the two (HE 249 / 852) went to Newcastle is still not proven.


 * Hope this helps, apologies for the complications.


 * Regards
 * John

Inserted here for reference purposes. André Kritzinger (talk) 19:32, 4 October 2013 (UTC)