In 1980 and 1981, the South African Railways placed fifty Class 7E1 electric locomotives with a Co-Co wheel arrangement in mainline service.

[1] Since they were acquired solely for use on the Richards Bay coal line where they would always work in multiple unit lashups, they were built with single cabs.

Until the Class 9E was introduced in 1978, all South African mainline electric locomotives were dual cab units.

The electrical equipment was designed for high power factor operation, obtained by the switching in of power-factor correction capacitors.

[4] In the period from the early 1990s until about 2007, various modifications to improve downhill braking capacity were done to the Coalink line's Hitachi-designed locomotives.