The Walvis Bay railway began as a 2 ft 6 in (762 mm) gauge horse-drawn tramway within the confines of the harbour town.

It arrived in Walvis Bay on 22 August 1899 aboard the barque Primera, along with a distilling plant, railway trucks and 200 tons of coal.

Kerr, Stuart was a supplier of contractor's engines and often built locomotives to standard designs, but without frame stretchers and axles.

The total weight of the engine in full working order was 12 long tons (12,190 kilograms) and it had a tractive effort of 1,020 pounds-force (4.5 kilonewtons) at 75% of boiler pressure.

[1] In 1899, the Cape government began to extend the tramway as a railway to a terminus named Plum, 11 miles (18 kilometres) due east of Walvis Bay near Rooibank, essentially in the middle of the Namib desert on the DSWA border.

To protect it against Walvis Bay's notoriously corrosive sea air, the engine has since been enclosed in a glass cage.