Bulawayo Railway Museum

Jack Tar is one of the best known and liked steam
locomotives to have worked in Rhodesia. Calling
Jack ‘she’, as is common with locomotives,
seems singularly inappropriate for such a
masculine name, so tradition must change, and
Jack will remain a ‘he’.

Built in 1889 as a Manning Wardle standard
design, Jack Tar was purchased new by Mr J P
Edwards of Chapel en le Frith, Derbyshire, a
contractor employed on the Midland Railway route
between Dore and Chinley. Built as a 3 foot gauge
locomotive, she was ex-works on 14 November
1889.

The locomotive is a flat sided 0-6-0 saddle tank
with a 19’1” wheelbase and a 22’10” overall length.

Interestingly, the locomotive presently displays a
Manning Wardle builders plate dated 1899. It is
not known why this is, but possibly the plate is a
replica. The name ‘Jack Tar’ has been on the
locomotive for a long time, but I do not know of any
definitive reason for it, or when it was applied.

In 1896 Jack Tar was altered to 3’6” gauge and
was sold to Pauling & Co for £1372. The loco
worked as a contractors engine for Paulings, who
were at that time involved in the widening of the
Beira to Umtali railway.

Around 1904 and 1905 he worked as a ballast
train locomotive on the construction of the line into
Zambia from Victoria Falls. He was the first
locomotive to cross the Victoria Falls Bridge (and
hit a leopard on that first trip). Prior to this he was
dismantled and carried across the Victoria Falls
gorge via the ‘Blondin Cable’ before the bridge
was completed. The boiler was the largest single
load carried on the Blondin, and it caused some
anxious moments as the cable sagged to an
extent that prevented the truck from climbing up
the cable until extra counterweights were added to
the cable end and the safety valve was adjusted to
give more steam pressure.

In 1929 Jack Tar was replaced at Beira by a pair of
Hudswell Clarke 0-6-0 tank locos and was sent to
Bulawayo to work as a workshop shunter. This
was again a useful duty as he could fit on the
traverser with a 65 foot coach, whereas all other
locomotives were too long.

In 1935 he was nominally sold to the Bulawayo
Workshops of the Rhodesia Railways. He was re-
boilered, and largely rebuilt in the workshops. The
cab was covered in, and a false dome was fitted.
By this time, an anchor as embellishment had
appeared on the handrail in front of the chimney.

The loco worked in the Bulawayo workshops until
1942, when it was stored prior to being displayed
at the Umtali Transport Museum.

Pauling and Co obtained a second Manning
Wardle 0-6-0T of similar design to Jack Tar.
Named Maramba (the name of a small river that
joins the Zambezi just above Victoria Falls), she
was used on the construction of the railway to
Kalomo and Broken Hill.

Maramba would appear to have worked further
north and most likely arrived in Katanga around
1909 / 1910, when work on the CFK commenced,
and was reputed to have been the first locomotive
in Katanga.

By 1972 Maramba was stored at Lubumbashi
Workshops in Katanga and by 1988 she had been
seen plinthed outside Lubumbashi Station.