A problem with the Cape Government Railways mainline locomotives of the 1870s was the small driver diameter of less than 40 inches. On passenger trains in particular, this led to high wear if they were ran at higher speeds for a longer period of time. In addition, the range of the tank locomotives mostly used was too small for newly opened lines in sparsely populated areas.

The solution was a tender locomotive with a 4-4-0 wheel arrangement and a wheel diameter of 48 inches. First, in 1879, the Avonside Engine Company delivered two locomotives each for the western and eastern networks, which received the numbers W25, W26, E8 and E9. The following year Neilson & Co. added six more for the west and five more for the east, bringing the total to 15.

With the help of these locomotives, the Karoo semi-desert could now also be opened up with fast passenger trains. An average speed of 34 mph was reached on the 339 miles long route from Cape Town to Beaufort West, which was a record for South Africa. When the South African Railways were founded in 1910, the locomotives, which were now classified as class 1, were classified as obsolete. So they became class 01 and got a zero prefixed to their running number. The nine locomotives still in existence at that time were all retired until 1915.

Almost identical to the Japanese Atlantics with the JNR numbers 6600 to 6623 were the six locomotives that the Cape Government Railways received from Baldwin in 1897. The order came about because the CGR could not order from the British manufacturers as usual due to strikes and Baldwin had already developed a locomotive that largely met the requirements. Only the heating surface was slightly enlarged and the engine had to be converted to South African Johnston couplers, which is why a lower purchase price could be offered. They were assigned to Class 4, which also included 4-6-0 locomotives.

It is said that the chief engineer of the CGR, H.M. Beatty, was impressed by the robust construction and he valued the merits of the bar frame so much that his later designs also all got a bar frame. After the founding of the South African Union in 1910 and the merger of the railway administrations, it became apparent, as with the Japanese sisters, that the locomotives had too little adhesive weight to reliably start heavy trains. They were therefore classified as obsolete, but remained in use on their main route until 1931.

In order to expand the capacity for hauling heavy passenger trains in the western and central parts of the Cape Colony, H.M. Beatty developed the first Class 6 locomotives to the specifications of Superintendent Michael Stephens. With a driver diameter of 54 inches, they were quite suitable for faster trains for the proportions of cape-gauge locomotives of the 1890s. The 40 examples were supplied by Dübs in Glasgow and introduced a new three-axle tender carrying 5 and a half tons of coal and 2,846 gallons of water.

The locomotives fully met the expectations placed on them and proved to be extremely inexpensive to maintain. In 1897, ten units were sold to the Oranje Free State Railways and operated there as Class 6-L. When the Orange Free State fell to British troops after the Second Boer War, they came to the Central South African Railways as Class 6-L1s. Their manager even suggested using the locomotives to set up a 48-hour connection for the 870 mile route from Cape Town to Johannesburg.

With the formation of the South African Railways they continued to be listed simply as Class 6 because they were the first of their kind. As the Class 6 was gradually replaced by more powerful locomotives in the role of fast passenger trains, it developed a reputation as the „jack of all trades”. They were to be found in front of almost all types of trains for several decades, and seven were even delivered to Sudan during World War II. The last examples were not retired until 1973, when they had been in service for 79 and 80 years respectively. Three examples remain today, one of which is operational and used intermittently by Rovos Rail to power the Pride of Africa luxury train.

The second type of Class 7 4-8-0 locomotives procured by the Cape Government Railways was built from 1896 for the central and eastern regions. They all came from British manufacturers and 45 were delivered by 1898, while a single one came from Dübs in 1901.

These locomotives were a development of the 1891 model and again were designed by Beatty. Compared to their predecessors, they had a larger boiler and a larger tender. Only the first driving axle had no wheel flanges. In the 1930s, many were rebuilt with a superheater and piston valves.

The Sudanese military received eight identical locomotives in 1897 and 1898 and used them in the Mahdist War. They were also called “Dongola class”. They had been given water pipes to the front so that an additional tender could be coupled there for use in the desert.

Of the GCR's locomotives, all but two, which had previously been sold, were taken over by the SAR in 1912. During the First World War, some were used in the conquest of German South West Africa. Due to their suitability in this region, more were later relocated there. After replacing them with more modern steam locomotives and diesel locomotives, the SAR retired the last class 7A locomotives in 1972.

In 1903, Kitson presented their variant of the Meyer locomotive in South Africa in which the running gears were further apart and both had the cylinders at the rear. Thus, as with the Garratt, a large firebox could be placed in between. This design, named “Kitson-Meyer”, was offered for testing to the GCR, the Beira and Mashonaland Railway and the CSAR.

The coal bunker with a capacity of seven long tons was on these machines on the main frame behind the cab and the exhaust steam from the rear cylinders was channeled through this into an auxiliary chimney. On the four-axle tender were another six long tons of coal and 3,000 gallons of water.

The CGR received one locomotive, the B&MR two and the CSAR one. With a total of six driving axles, they could pull about one third more than locomotives with four driving axles. However, it quickly turned out to be a disadvantage that the exhaust steam from the rear cylinders did not escape through the smokebox. Thus, the boiler steamed poorly.

The CGR later increased the tender's water capacity to 4,000 gallons at the expense of coal capacity, but of course this did not improve boiler performance. Although they were to become the KM class at the SAR, the CGR and B&MR locomotives were retired in 1912. Only the CSAR loco was able to remain in service for a few more years after modifying the cylinders and reducing the boiler problem.