7 named Albion, had been delivered in 1898 with a shorter boiler to make room for a longer firebox in an effort to overcome these issues.

[1] These six locomotives were very similar in appearance to the earlier Clara Class, but could be visually identified by their steam domes which were located further forward, closer to their chimneys, as well as by the different shape of the cutaway at the rear of their frames above their trailing axles.

[1] Like their predecessors, the condensing and Clara Class locomotives, they were equipped with sheet-metal casing above and below their running boards.

This was to protect the motion and bearings, as well as working parts of the J. Hawthorn-Kitson valve gear which protruded above the running boards, from wind-blown sand.

[1] Little mining had been done during the depression years but, as a common carrier, the Namaqualand Railway was not closed and a skeleton service of two trains per week continued to operate.

During the approximately nineteen years while the mines were closed, the railway was apparently run more or less by one man, Jack Meadows, the station master at O'okiep.