[1][2] Six narrow-gauge 2-8-2 steam locomotives were built for the South African Railways (SAR) by Henschel and Son in Germany in 1921.

As on the Class Hd, this resulted in a rigid wheelbase of 17 feet 11⁄16 inch (5,199 millimetres), even though the leading carrying wheels were arranged to the rear instead of ahead of the cylinders.

[1][2][4] The 1922-vintage Class NG5 was placed in service on the 352-mile long (566-kilometre) narrow-gauge line from Swakopmund on the Atlantic coast to Tsumeb and Grootfontein in South West Africa (SWA).

They spent their whole service life in SWA, except for a brief period when one of them was sent to the Avontuur Railway in the Eastern Cape for trials.

However, since it jammed on the tighter curves in the Langkloof despite having one set of flangeless coupled wheels, it was soon returned to SWA.