Alfred County Railway is an abandoned 2 ft (610 mm) narrow gauge railway in South Africa, which runs from the southern transport hub of Port Shepstone on the Indian Ocean, via Izotsha and Paddock for 122 kilometres (76 mi) to Harding, KwaZulu-Natal.

South Africa, rich in natural resources and fertile lands, has many areas that are ideal for agricultural production. However, the steep mountainous terrain between the resource rich areas in the high veld and the coastal ports presented a transport challenge.

Before well maintained and reliable access roads had been developed, narrow gauge railways were used extensively by South African farmers to move produce from their large farms to central sorting and packing points on their own land. As a result, entrepreneurial business people created linking railways to transport the produce from the sorting and packing points to the coastal ports. Their choice of gauge was determined by the gauge that was being used in each local area and varied between the early 1 ft 11+1⁄2 in (597 mm) to the later Cape gauge of 1,067 mm (3 ft 6 in).

Designed as part of the Natal Government Railways' (NGR) project to transport sugar cane and bananas grown in the agricultural Harding district to Port Shepstone, the NGR commissioned Stoke-on-Trent based Kerr Stuart to build seven Class NG4 4-6-2T tank locomotives, based on the 1907 Class NG3 4-6-2T.

The route of the Alfred County Railway had some curves of 45 metres (147.6 ft), but with gradients of up to 3 in 100 / 3% (ruling grade of 1 in 37 / 2.7% for 20 miles or 32 kilometres after leaving the coast), the NG4s and their replacements were often double-headed to haul the diverse freight traffic of wood, sugar cane and bananas to Port Shepstone. The line's management decided against purchasing more powerful articulated Garratt locomotives, because their longer wheelbase would make access to the sugar cane fields more difficult.

From the mid-1970s, steam was replaced by Class 91-000 diesel-electric locomotives on the SAR's longer routes, which were more powerful. Also, being shorter in chassis length, these diesel-electric locomotives were able to access the growers' farms. Therefore, the SAR decided to transfer the NG G13 and NG G16 Garratts to the Alfred County Railway in Natal.

Due to underinvestment, the Alfred County Railway became increasingly unreliable, and was closed to operations by the SAR in 1986.

As South Africa's farmers re-entered the global markets in the late 1980s, the quality of produce going to markets became increasingly important. As handling is a key issue in the retail quality of bananas in particular, the farmers were in favour of reviving the Alfred County Railway, to reduce the amount of handling from banana plantation to port.