During the Second Boer War, one more was obtained from the Imperial Military Railways in March 1901, as replacement for a locomotive which was damaged beyond local repair capabilities as a result of hostilities during delivery.

At the same time, the ex Imperial Military Railways locomotive was also sold back to South Africa and was, also erroneously, designated Class 7D.

At the time, the system was composed of several smaller railways, still largely under construction, which were eventually all linked up in 1902.

[1][2][3][7] During this SAR classification and renumbering process, two of these locomotives were incorrectly classified, possibly as a result of their records getting exchanged in an apparent administrative error.

[1][3] In 1915, shortly after the outbreak of the First World War, the German South West Africa colony was occupied by the Union Defence Forces.

Most remained there and were only transferred back to South Africa when the Class 32-000 diesel-electric locomotives replaced them in 1961.