South African Class GMA 4-8-2+2-8-4 still ongoing in 1979, the locomotives were equipped with armour plating around the cab. Since this obscured the number plates, the engine numbers were then usually stencilled on the cabsides. The Class GMAM was similar in size with a similar coal capacity to the Rhodesia Railways 20th class 4-8-2+2-8-4 Garratt, but it had a voracious appetite for coal and frequently ran low on fuel with the result that trains often had to be dumped. In an attempt to solve this problem, RR extended the height of the Class GMAM's coal bunker by a foot to increase the capacity. 26 GMAM
Minim (unit) size of a drop can vary considerably depending upon the viscosity and specific gravity of the liquid. (At the time, the phenomenon of surface tension was not well understood.) The minim, on the other hand, was measured with a graduated glass tube known as a "minimometer", later known as the minim-tube. The minim-tube was a type of graduated pipette, a device invented in 1791 by François-Antoine-Henri Descroizilles. Apothecaries' measures are fully defined in the United Kingdom's Weights and Measures Act of 1878, but the UK's 1963 Weights and Measures Act provided for the abolition of the minim, fluid scruple, and