Cover of the 1940 Henschel SAR Class 23 deluxe commemorative locomotive album, with blind-embossed South African coat of arms

A Cornerstone Industrial Source for Pre-War Locomotive Engineering

Issued in 1940 by Henschel & Sohn of Kassel — Germany's leading locomotive manufacturer — this deluxe commemorative volume documents the delivery of 98 Class 23 4-8-2 steam locomotives to South African Railways & Harbours, one of the largest pre-war locomotive export contracts on Henschel's books. Conceived as a presentation album for SAR officials and ministerial recipients, it combines technical illustration of the highest order with the printing craft of late-1930s German photogravure work.

The copy on offer is in good exterior and near fine interior condition. Extremities are foxed and a former owner has placed an ex-libris on the front pastedown; otherwise the binding is sound, all 84 pages are complete and tight, and the deluxe blind-embossed South African coat of arms remains crisp on the front cover. The 81 black-and-white photogravure plates and the 12 hand-tipped color photogravures retain strong tonal range, and the multi-panel folding plate — extending to roughly 40 inches across and bearing a full cross-section schematic of the Class 23 — is intact and clean.

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Bibliographic Record

Title: Henschel SAR Class 23 Industrial Locomotive Album — subtitle Steel becomes Power (German: Stahl wird Kraft).
Author: H. Osterwald.
Illustrator: Photogravure plates after factory and field photographs supplied by Henschel & Sohn, Kassel; individual photographers not separately credited.
Publisher: House Osterwald, Hannover — produced as a deluxe presentation album for Henschel & Sohn, Kassel.
Year: 1940.
Edition: First edition, deluxe presentation issue.
Language: German with English presentation captions (bilingual export edition prepared for South African Railways & Harbours).
Collation: 84 pp., with 81 black-and-white photogravure reproductions, 12 hand-tipped color photogravure reproductions, and one multi-panel folding plate (≈ 40 in. / ≈ 102 cm) bearing a cross-section schematic of the Class 23 4-8-2 locomotive.
Binding: Publisher's hardcover, with deluxe blind-embossed South African coat of arms to the front cover.
Dimensions: Approx. 21.6 × 29.8 cm (8.5 × 11.75 in.).
Weight: Approx. 950 g (≈ 2.1 lb.).
Condition: Good exterior, near fine interior. Extremities foxed; ex-libris on front pastedown; otherwise sound, with faint traces of use and age. All pages complete and tight in the binding.
Provenance: Original commemorative presentation album issued by Henschel & Sohn of Kassel on the occasion of the delivery of 98 Class 23 4-8-2 steam locomotives to South African Railways & Harbours. From a private German technical-history library.

Selected Views

Photogravure plate from the 1940 Henschel SAR Class 23 album — Photogravure plate from the album — Class 23 4-8-2 in factory presentation.

Interior plate of the 1940 Henschel SAR Class 23 album — Interior plate documenting the Henschel & Sohn works at Kassel.

Detail plate from the 1940 Henschel SAR Class 23 album — Detail plate — engineering and component documentation.

Color photogravure or technical plate from the 1940 Henschel SAR Class 23 album — Hand-tipped color photogravure / technical illustration from the album.

Research Context

The Class 23 — a 4-8-2 “Mountain” type — was designed by Henschel & Sohn in close cooperation with the Chief Mechanical Engineer's office of South African Railways to handle the demanding gradients and long distances of the SAR network on Cape gauge (3 ft 6 in / 1 067 mm). The 1939 export order, fulfilled into 1940 just before wartime restrictions effectively halted German locomotive exports, was one of the largest pre-war foreign contracts on Henschel's books, and it cemented the firm's reputation as a supplier of heavy main-line motive power for dominion and colonial railway systems.

The album survives as one of the few primary printed sources to record, with full factory authority, the technical specification, livery, and presentation context of the Class 23 — a class that would remain in revenue service on South African Railways for more than four decades.

For historians of industrial design, locomotive engineering, German export industry, and South African transport, this volume sits alongside the surviving Henschel works archive (today held in part at the Stadtarchiv Kassel) as a key contemporary record of how the firm chose to present its work to a major international customer on the eve of the Second World War. The bilingual presentation captions, deluxe binding, and tipped-in color photogravures place it firmly in the tradition of corporate commemorative publications produced by leading German heavy-industry firms during the late 1930s and early 1940s.

Appropriate Use

This album is offered exclusively as a primary research and documentary source. Suitable scholarly applications include:

Historical research into German locomotive engineering and the German export industry of the 1930s and early 1940s.
Studies of South African Railways & Harbours, Cape-gauge motive power, and the operational history of the Class 23 4-8-2.
Industrial design and graphic-arts research, including the photogravure and tipped-in color printing processes characteristic of late-1930s German publishing.
Museum exhibitions, archival deposit, and reference holdings of railway, transport, and industrial-history collections.
Teaching and curriculum support in courses on industrial history, transport history, and twentieth-century engineering.

It is not offered for ideological, celebratory, or decorative use, and it is not offered for reproduction, reprinting, or any form of republication. By completing an order, every buyer — institutional or individual — accepts these conditions of use together with the seller's Terms & Conditions.