German Zugfahrer!!!
Now, let's talk about a huge girl, used for traction of German railroad trains, during WWII. It's time for the elegant
Kriegslokomotive Baureihe 52.
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Br 52 (52 4830) still working in post-war era - Germany.
Note the absence of the smoke deflectors... |
History:
The
Deutsche Reichsbahn's Class 52 is a German
steam locomotive built in large numbers during the Second World War. It was the most produced type of the so-called
Kriegslokomotiven or Kriegsloks (war locomotives). The Class 52 was a wartime development of the pre-war
DRG Class 50, using fewer parts and less expensive materials to speed the mass production.
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| DRG 50 in in Bischofsheim, Hesse. (Wikipedia) |
They were designed by
Richard Wagner who was Chief Engineer of the Central Design Office at the Locomotive Standards Bureau of the DRG.
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Richard Felix Paul Wagner
(25 August 1882 – 14 February 1953) |
About a dozen classes of locomotive were referred to as Kriegslokomotiven, however the three main classes were the Class 52,
50 and
42.
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| DRG 42 in Bayerischen Eisenbahnmuseum Nördlingen. |
Many locomotives passed into Russian ownership after the Second World War. In the U.S.S.R. the class were designated TE 5200 (TЭ 5200). Other operators of the type included Poland and Romania, Bulgaria, Norway and Turkey. In Yugoslavia locomotives of the type were classified JŽ 33.
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| Soviet TE 5200 (Br 52 with some russian modifications) |
Over 6,700 locomotives of DRB Class 52 type were built across Europe for use on the Eastern Front during the Second World War. Thus it was one of the most numerous steam locomotives in the world. To achieve such numbers, the German locomotive manufacturers were merged into the Gemeinschaft Grossdeutscher Lokomotivhersteller (GGL), which was a subdivision of the Hauptausschuss Schienenfahrzeuge (HAS) founded in 1942.
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| Br 52 Kriegslokomotive in the Russian Front - Kiev, winter 1943. |
The GGL included the following locomotive manufacturers (including an approximate number of Class 52s produced):
- LOFAG, Vienna: 1,053 units
- Henschel, Kassel (Henschel Flugzeugwerke AG): 1,050 units (forced labor)
- Schwartzkopff, Berlin: 647 units
- Krauss-Maffei, Munich: 613 units
- Borsig, Berlin; branches: Borsig-Rheinmetall AG Düsseldorf (in Siemianowice, Poland), Borsig Lokomotivwerke Hennigsdorf, Borsig Werke Breslau-Hundsfeld (now Wrocław-Psie Pole,Poland): 542 units (forced labor, incl. KL Auschwitz)
- Schichau-Werke Elbing (now Elbląg, Poland): 505 units (forced labor, incl. KZ Stutthof, and its subcamps).
- Maschinenbau und Bahnbedarfs AG (MBA) formerly Orenstein & Koppel, Babelsberg: 400 units
- DWM Posen, Poznań (occupied Poland), German takeover of Polish manufacturer H. Cegielski - Poznań: 314 units (forced labor)
- Oberschlesische Lokfabrik Krenau, Chrzanów (occupied Poland), German takeover of Polish manufacturer Fablok: 264 units (forced labor)
- Maschinenfabrik Esslingen: 250 units
- Jung, Jungenthal, Kirchen: 231 units
- Škoda Works, Pilsen: 153 units
- Grafenstaden, Strasbourg: 139 units
Engine design:
The class (Baureihe) 52 was a simplified version of the prewar Reichsbahn class 50 locomotive (produced 1938-1942). The simplified design of the class 52 was intended to reduce the man-hours and skills needed to manufacture it and to adapt to wartime shortages of strategic materials. Additional design changes gave the locomotives and their crew better protection against the cold.
Between 1942 and the end of the war in May 1945 over 6,300 class 52 locomotives were built. Additional locomotives were built post-war, giving a class total of probably 6719 units, delivered by seventeen manufacturers. The
Class 42 was a larger version of the Class 52, but was produced in small numbers.
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| A brand new Br 50 in rest, waiting work... |
In the early postwar years class 52s were used by many European countries, the largest user being the
Soviet Union, which had more than 2,100 of them, designated class TE 5200 (ТЭ). Poland had more than a thousand and East Germany had about 800.
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| Br 52 in Dresden, East Germany, 1976. |
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| Br 52 class as running after the War on PKP as Polish class Ty2 - 1976. |
The type was also widespread among other eastern European nations. Western European countries replaced them with more modern locomotives as soon as possible, with the exception of Austria where they were used until 1976.
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| Austrian Br 52 (ÖBB) 52.6084, without deflector plates, at Graz depot - 1971 |
The simplicity and effectiveness, plus the large production total, meant that many eastern European countries were slow to withdraw these Kriegslokomotiven. Poland used them into the early 1990s; Turkey and Bosnia were also late users of the type.
Wagner had wanted locomotives which were long-lasting and easy to maintain, and unlike British engineers did not consider a high power-to-weight ratio a priority. The resulting Kriegslokomotive had a low
axleload of 15 tons and could haul 40 percent more freight than the old Prussian locomotives they replaced. The class 52 could haul 1,200 tons at 65 kph without significant strain.
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Kriegslokomotive Baureihe 52.
Undoubtedly, an excellent piece of mechanical engineering. |
Countries using the engine:
Following the
invasion of Poland in September 1939 Nazi Germany disbanded the
Polish State Railways (PKP). Polish rail officials were either
executed in mass shootings or
imprisoned, and some 8,000 managerial positions were staffed with German officials. Former Polish companies began producing German engines BR44, BR50 and BR86 as early as 1940, some using
forced labor.
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| Polish Br 86 - Lokomotywa parowa TKt3-16 - Skansenu w Chabówce. |
By 1944, the factories in
Poznań and
Chrzanów were producing the redesigned Kriegslok BR52 locomotives for the Eastern Front. These locomotives were made almost entirely of steel; the use of more expensive, non-ferrous metals was dropped in view of the engines' expected lifespan. After the war, some 1,200 class 52s remained in reconstituted Poland. Another 200 were acquired from the Soviet Union in 1962-64. The class 52, designated
Ty2, began to be phased out in the 1980s; its last regular use was in 1999.
Some 100 were built for Romanian State Railways, becoming class 150.1000 engines. Over 150 were in use by the Bulgarian State Railways as class 15. Turkish Republic Railways built 10 for forming the TCDD 56501 Class. Turkish Railways acquired 43 additional loc's at the end of the war, these had previously been on hire.
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| Lokomotive DR 52.80 |
74 locomotives were sent to occupied Norway during World War II and were confiscated following the war. The Norwegian classification was class 63, and was nicknamed Stortysker ("big German"). One engine, restored by the
Norwegian Railway Club, is preserved at the
Norwegian Railway Museum in
Hamar.
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| Norwegian locomotive Type 63 Stortysker (Br 52) |
The
ČSD Czechoslovak state railways used hundreds of 52s post-war, some left behind by the Germans after 1945, some being rebuilt by the
Škoda Works in
Plzeň. They bore designation class ČSD 555; several dozen were subsequently adapted, as the 555.3, to burn
mazut fuel oil, a large surplus of which was generated in
synthetic fuel plants in occupied Czechoslovakia from brown coal. The 555.3 differed visibly by having a lid on the smokestack to slow down cooling of the lining of the flue passage, to prevent cracking.
The Hungarian State Railways (
MÁV) acquired 100 type 52s from the Soviet Union in 1963. They were designated class 520 and used into the 1980s. Others were used by Yugoslavia before that country's dissolution in the 1990s. A few were still in industrial service in Bosnia in late 2017.
| Kriegslokomotive Baureihe 52 (DBR 52) |
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| Quantity | 7000+ |
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| Manufacturer | see text |
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| Year(s) of manufacture | 1942–ca. 1950 |
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| Retired | ČSD: 1976
DB: 1962
DR: 1988
ÖBB: 1976 |
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| Wheel arrangement | 2-10-0 |
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| Axle arrangement | 1'E h2 |
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| Type | G 56.15 |
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| Track gauge | 1,435 mm standard gauge
1,524 mm Russian gauge |
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| Length over buffers | 22,975 m
27,532 m (with condensing tender) |
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| Overall wheelbase | 9.2 m |
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| Service weight | 84.0 t |
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| Service weight incl.tender | 102.7 t |
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| Adhesive weight | 75.9 t |
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| Top speed | 80 km/h |
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| Indicated Power | 1,192 kW (1,598 hp) |
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| Driving wheeldiameter | 1,400 mm |
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| Leading wheeldiameter | 850 mm |
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| No. of cylinders | 2 |
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| Cylinder bore | 600 mm |
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| Piston stroke | 660 mm |
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| Boiler Overpressure | 16 bar (1.6 MPa; 230 psi) |
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| Grate area | 3.89 m2 |
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| Evaporative heating area | 177.83 m2 |
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| Tender service weight | 18.7 t (18.4 long tons;
20.6 short tons) |
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| Water capacity | 27,000 L - 30,000 L |
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| Fuel | 10.0 t coal |
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| Train heating | Steam |
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The kit:
I built this kit 12 years ago (2007) , when Trumpeter release this big girl in the market (2005). The kit was amazing, big and challenger.
The pics of the building are few and bad, but I put them as references of my old times of modeling. I'm really sorry that I did not have the photos of the first stages of the building, but here are the photos I have:
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The locomotive standing on his own feet.
Notice the beginning of the black painting in the lower portion of the machine.
The smoke deflector I made with aluminium soda can... |
I decided not to do the black and red painting suggested by Trumpeter ... Just plain ugly .... I decided to do something more "operational" ...
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| Trumpeter suggestions... Hmmmm...Nop!! |
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| Front view... Notice Karl, the German cousin of Kojak... |
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| Notice the interior, previously painted... |
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| The (wrong) tender... |
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| The big girl with dark belly!! |
Well ... At that time, there was a fever of installing a 20mm quadruple Flakvierling 38 on the rear platform of the tender.
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| Tamiya (#35091) Flakvierling 38 - 20mm quadruple |
And let's face it: in that place it really was a great place to increase the chances of surviving this magnificent target ... Let's make a support to the "cradle" of the Flakvierling 38 Pom-Pom ......
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| Making the AA gun cradle... |
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| And the Loko ready for the cammo... |
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| My choice; Yellow cammo pos-1942 with green and red-brown strips... |
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| Hmmm... I don't like it!! "To many colors"... |
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| The tender with the AA 20mm gun.... |
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| Decals... |
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| Notice the platform made in scratch, in the rear of "coal compartment".. |
And speaking of coal, Trumpeter's solution was horrible: uniform, flat, ungrateful little pieces of coal injected into the plastic ...
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| Trumpeter's carbon!! |
Ugh !! Awful!!
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| Horrible, Trumpeter!! |
I decided to add carbon in nuggets, used in aquariums, for water filters. I will use PVA glue diluted in water for gluing ...
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| Activated carbon for aquariums filters ... |
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| The carbon nuggets!! Much better!! |
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| Trying to tone down the bright colors... |
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| Weathering the cammo... Hmmm... |
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| This is not going well. I really do not like the effect of colors ... |
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| Really, I didn't like it ... I don't know why, but I did not like it !! |
In desperation, I decided to mitigate the painting with a winter cammo...
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| White strips for winter cammo... |
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| Hmmm... Much better!! |
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| A detail: A flakvierling with a Panzer-gray camouflage, also with winter strips !! |
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| Flakvierling 38 adapted in the rear tender platform... |
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| Typhoon view!! |
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| Much better, IMHO !! |
And after that, a few years have passed. I changed residence, leaving a big house with plenty of room for a tighter apartment. The Kriegslokomotive project stood like a real "Shelf Queen", forgotten and unfinished in the back of my showcase.
Until a colleague decided to buy the girl, as long as I finished it ... And that's how I did the final weathering.
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| Balkenkreuz!!! |
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| Weathering in the girls!! |
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| The composition almost done... |
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| Adding headlights and rear lights... |
And finally the train composition is ready!! Here is the Kriegslokomotive Baureihe 52 (and Schwerer Spähzug Artilleriewagen s.Sp.), who are now going to their final station, towards the south of Brazil. Bon voyage, mates !!! Let the Typhoons, Mustangs and Tunderbolts not find you on the way !!! Full steam ahead!!!
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Kriegslokomotive Baureihe 52 - East front
Winter, 1944. |
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| Kriegslokomotive Baureihe 52 |
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Kriegslokomotive Baureihe 52 carbon and water tender.
Notice the 20mm quadruple Flakvierling 38 on the rear. |
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| Kojak and Rover, the dog, inspecting the 20mm quadruple Flakvierling 38. |
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| The coal cargo in the tender... |
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| Kriegslokomotive Baureihe 52 with tender |
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| Kojak is a very happy guy!! |
All aboard for a new project, soon !!
Hola PanzerSerra...
ResponderExcluir¿Tienes alguna foto real de una BR-52 con un Flak 20mm sobre el tender?
Hola, Tobar!!! Sorry...Lo sinto!! Realmente no tengo ... Pero como decía en el artículo, el lugar sería prácticamente perfecto para instalar un cañón antiaéreo ligero ... Si fuera Ingeniero Ferroviario, sin duda, instalaría mi defensa allí contra los JABOs!! Saludos!!!
Excluir