QUOTE (ebaykal @ 31 Mar 2007, 09:47)
<{POST_SNAPBACK}>Kriegsloks (indeed war locomotives) were built on military orders, and based on military requirements which are different from civilian requirements.
The famous Br52, but also the 8F have all similar underlying requirements:
- reduced size and weight to run on most (if not all) lines of Europe
- can be quickly converted to vacuum braking, driving on the right, ... The Br52 were designed to be quickly converted to Russian gauge and many served there.
- very simple design enabling army style maintenance by personnel with little knowledge and tools.
- standard design, easy to assemble, easy to ship. An amazing 7000 Br52s were built in 1942/1945 (its an average rate of 10 per day).
Of course, these locos were not meant for high performance or durability. The fact that so many survived very late is a complete surprise.
Cheers
Baykal
Hello Baykal,
I´m sorry, but on the Kriegslokomotiven classes 52 and 42, I have different information.
The 52 class is a de-refined version of the class 50. When Germany attacked the Soviet Union in WW2, the Deutsche Reichsbahn found that they were in desperate need of new engines, as they could not guarantee that all military requiremennts will be met using the existing engines and freight cars. One of the reasons was that the mostly old Prussian type engines (classes 55 and 57 for instance) were not frost resistant, and thus rendered useless in the Russian winter.
This put the Reichsbahn in some kind of dilemma, as building a class 50 engine took many materials such as copper, zinc etc. to build, many working hours as it was a rather complicated design, and frost protection had to be designed for the engine as well. The HAS (during WW2, the engine factories rather than the Reichsbahn was responsible for new engine designs) altered the class 50 bit by bit, "de-refined" ("entfeinert" in German) the design so that time and Material could be saved. This was done while the production of the class 50 was running, and each engine built at that time was altered a bit more (no wind deflectors, no spoked wheels on the front bogie, "boxy" rather than the old, cast, round sandboxes on the boiler, less pipes and valves) and called "class 50 ÜK", the ÜK meaning "Übergangs-Kriegslokomotive", or "transitional wartime engine". Also, the use of "Heimstoffe", or "homegrown raw materials", was also being emphasized. On the class 19.10, you can see an "H" in a circle, meaning that this engine was built using mainly these "Heimstoffe"; on the wartime engines, this was not emphasized. When the transition led to the class 52, the orders for the last few lots of class 50 engines was shifted to class 52 engines (note that the early ones still look a lot like class 50s). For frost protection, most pipes and valves were placed under a boiler insulation, which gives the boiler its "smooth" appearance, and the drivers´cabin, which is closed to all sides, Norwegian style. De-refinement also meant that the gears were no longer cast, but rather cut from steel with the crankshafts then electrowelded to the steel rods - a new method, which worked out well. What didn´t work out were savings in the axle bearings, as the class 52 engines (even more this is true for the class 42) was famous for jerking left and right when riding at speeds higher than 50 kph. The sizes and weight did not need to be reduced, as the class 50 was already a very universally used engine in all parts (even Mecklenburg, where no heavy engine could go at the time without tearing up the tracks) of Germany (however, the use of less and moreover different materials did lead to a slight reduction in weight).
It is not true, though, that the 52s were meant for right--hand driving, or quick conversion to Russian gauge. When the Germans invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, special units of railway pioneers removed one side of the russian track and replaced it again, only this time with the standard European gauge of 1.435 mm. This was necessary to make sure every German, Austrian, Romanian, Bulgarian, Italian, you name Germany´s allies at the time engine, freight or passenger car could ride the rails where the German troops were. Additionally, no Soviet engines were able to use the rails converted by the German Wehrmacht. However, after the end of WW2, a lot of class 52 engines were still in Russia, converted by the Soviets to suit their needs, and placed into the Soviet "Strategical Reserve" in case of war. Most were based in the Kaliningrad area, all facing westward... As for braking, they had standard German/continental European brake equipment, so there was no need to convert to vacuum braking. After the Invasion of Denmark in 1941, German railroad pioneer troops converted the Danish equipment to German standards rather than vice versa.
There was no need for "army maintenance". In WW2, all German troops were followed by Reichsbahn personnel who were in charge of driving and maintaining the railroad equipment (the "blue" railroaders, as opposed to the "gray" military troops in charge of converting the tracks and securing railroad premises). Herdly ever were these engines driven by soldiers, most had Reichsbahn personnel on board - drafted as well, but not as soldiers.
Some class 52 engines were built as class 52Kon engines, featuring a tender with condensator devices, where the steam from the stack would be blown through a turbine into the tender, where the water from the steam would be condensated and used over and over again. This construction was intended for arid southern Russia, however, just before the end of WW2, these were about the only engines that could be used within Germany as there was no exhaust steam giving their position away to allied aircrews.
Shipment of these engines was not a problem - they left the factories and headed off to the eastern front (the western Front, due to its warmer climate and better tracks, was more of a bastion of class 44 engines). Not all of the class 52 engines had been built during WW2 - some were assembled as late as 1949 from leftover parts by Henschel in Germany. Some which were built between 1945 and 1947 were built with the help of allied troops (there were few male workers in Germany at the time, as a great many were MIA, KIA or POW) and carried a builder´s plate from the 757th Railway Shop Battalion" on their boilers, placed behind the wind deflectors.
Around 1943, the Turkish government was still undecided which side of the war to join. As it had been decided it would be a good idea to help Turkey out with new engines, the TCDD ordered 10 class 52 engines at the Schwartkopf factory in Berlin (56.501-56.510) and nine with Krupp in Essen, which had been relegated to Henschel in Kassel (proposed: 56.511 - 56.519). The first batch, however, was delivered to Croatia instead. In order to not keep the Turks waiting, 43 slightly used engines were lent to the TCDD between September 1943 and January 1944:
52 364 - 368 built by BLW (Borsig, Berlin)
52 4855-4865 built by MBA (Maschinenbau und Bahnbedarf, several locations within Germany)
52 6062-6063 built by BMAG (Berliner Maschinenbau AG, formerly Schwartzkopff)
52 6066-6073 built by BMAG (Berliner Maschinenbau AG, formerly Schwartzkopff)
52 7285-7292 built by WLF (Wiener Lokfabrik, Vienna)
52 7425-7434 built by WLF (Wiener Lokfabrik, Vienna)
Due to the bombing raids on Berlin, the first order (the one that has been delivered to Croatia) has been shifted to Henschel in Kassel as well, and delivered to Turkey by Henschel. However, after these 53 engines had been sold/given to Turkey, relations between Turkey and Germany started to deteriorate, partly because of British pressure, partly because it was clear now that Germany was losing the war. After Turkey declared war on Germany on August 2nd, 1944, no further engines were delivered to the TCDD.
Sources:
Alfred B. Gottwald, "Deutsche Kriegslokomotiven 1939 bis 1945" (transpress Verlag, 2nd ed. 1998)
Manfred Weisbod & Horst J. Obermayer, "Die Baureihe 52" (Hermann Merker Verlag, 1st ed. 1996)
Janusz Piekalkiewicz, "Die Deutsche Reichsbahn im Zweiten Weltkrieg" (transpress Verlag, 6th ed. 1998)
EDIT: Please do forgive my substandard use of the English language; you may have found out by now that I am not a native speaker. Thak you very much.