Steam railcar type Thomas
| Steam railcar type Thomas | |
|---|---|
| Manufacturer: | ME , MAN , Hohenzollern |
| Year of construction (s): | 1879 ff. |
| Retirement: | around 1900 |
| Top speed: | 40 km / h |
| Driving wheel diameter: | 1100 mm |
| Cylinder diameter: | 220 mm |
| Piston stroke: | 360 mm |
| Cylinder pressure: | 10 atü |
| Grate area: | 0.52 m² |
| Radiant heating surface: | 34 m² |
| Operating mode: | steam |
| Seats: | more than 80 |
| Classes : | 1st, 2nd and 3rd |
The Thomas type steam railcar was a double-decker railcar based on a design by the railway director Georg Thomas , who worked for the Hessian Ludwig Railway .
description
From the 1880s on, some German railway companies used steam railcars (DTw). They created an optimum between operating costs and seating capacity in local passenger transport . The Hessian Ludwig Railway and the Royal Saxon State Railways were among the first railway companies to use them .
Thomas, first mechanical engineer since 1856, from 1876 member of the 'Specialdirection' of the Hessian Ludwig Railway, developed the steam railcar named after him in 1879. On April 2, 1881, he received Reichs Patent No. 12635 from the Imperial Patent Office in Berlin . This "steam car for main and secondary lines" was designed as follows:
The three-axle vehicle consisted of a single-axle drive part and a two-axle, double-decker wagon part. These were rigidly coupled and could only be separated in the workshop. The drive part could then be provided with a small auxiliary axle under the front buffer beam and used independently. The wagon department could also be provided with a buffer beam and tow hook at the front and used as an independent passenger car. Thomas had this solution explicitly patented.
The drive was carried out by two cylinders , which were mounted directly under the bottom of the drive part lengthways between its frame cheeks. Both push rods accessed the double cranked drive axle . The boiler was reasons of space transverse to the direction in the driver's cab on the rear wall. In front of it was a narrow coal and sandpit. The water supplies were mainly carried in the main reservoir under the wagon section. In addition, this reservoir was fed from containers inside the car. The water was first filled into these containers via filler necks on the roof, which passed the water on to all other containers through communicating pipes.
A counter-vapor brake and a handbrake were provided as braking devices. The latter acted on the wagon wheels and could also be operated from the rear platform. An additional safety measure was the storage of the drive axle in two outer and inner bearings, which should minimize the risk of an axle breakage.
The communication devices that Thomas mentioned in the patent specification were interesting: there was a speaking tube in the driver's cab, the steam whistle could also be operated with a cable for signals from the conductor from the rear platform and in an emergency you could use a door on the upper floor of the car get onto the roof of the drive unit and climb into the driver's cab through a roof hatch.
According to the Centralblatt der Bauverwaltung (see lit.) "a great future" was predicted for the steam railcar, and the 'Prämierungscommission' of the Association of German Railway Administrations awarded Thomas a prize for this invention at the end of 1882.
Was operational disadvantage that the vehicles as a way vehicles are rotated at the terminal station for the return trip had.
Used by the Hessian Ludwig Railway
The first “Thomas” railcar was delivered to the Hessische Ludwigsbahn in 1879 at a unit price of 27,000 marks . The railcar was the first steam railcar to be used in public transport. Two more followed in 1880. The railcars were named "Glück Auf" (1879), "Puck" (1880) and "Gnom" (1880). The drive parts were built by the Esslingen machine works , the wagon part by the Augsburg-Nuremberg machine works .
The vehicles were equipped with all three car classes in the lower area . The upper area was a third-class room with a continuous wooden bench below the rows of windows. Four window axes were available in the lower area and the seats were arranged in four compartments 2 + 3, with the third class and the upholstered classes each forming an open-plan compartment with two window axes. In the upholstered class, the seats on the side on which they were wider were assigned to the second class, on the narrower side to the first class, where they were designed as small individual compartments with additional doors opposite the aisle. One of the two first class compartments was reserved for "women". The third class had 60 seats and the upholstered class 20 seats.
The vehicles were initially used on the Odenwald Railway between Darmstadt and Erbach , and from 1881 between Rosengarten , Mannheim and Bensheim . As a rule, they operated with two or three other attached cars .
The vehicles were retired between 1893 and 1910. The remainder came to the Prussian-Hessian Railway Community in 1897 with the nationalization of the Hessian Ludwig Railway . The car parts of the vehicles were then still used as passenger cars with an additional buffer beam.
Use with other railways
The Thomas type steam railcars were used in relatively large numbers on various railways over a period of two decades:
- Two more steam railcars were delivered to the Oels – Gnesener Eisenbahn – Gesellschaft as No. 1 and No. 2 in 1883. Largely structurally identical to the DTw of the Hessian Ludwigsbahn, they had sheet metal and no wood cladding. The drive parts, however, came from the Hohenzollern Aktiengesellschaft für Lokomotivbau , Düsseldorf .
- Also in 1883 the KED Elberfeld received two DTws of the Thomas type, also from the Hohenzollern company (serial numbers: 275 and 276), which were designated as "Elberfeld 1" and "2". The wagon part was about a meter longer than the wagons supplied by the Maschinenbau-AG Nürnberg and had a separate mail room.
- The Royal Saxon State Railways obtained three Thomas ( Hz 0 ) vehicles , which were very similar in design to those for the Oels – Gnesen railway. The heating surface of the drive part was slightly larger and the upper floor of the wagon part was again clad with wood. The vehicles designated as “A”, “B” and “C” were first used in the Löbau / Zittau area and later in the Pirna / Meuselwitz area. They were probably retired between 1900 and 1902.
- At the Royal Württemberg State Railways .
literature
- The double-decker Thomas steam railcar of the Hessian Ludwig Railway. Detailed description and operating results of the various test runs and the use on the Odenwaldbahn = supplement to the organ for the progress of the railway industry . 1881.
- Centralblatt der Bauverwaltung . Volume III, No. 13. Berlin 1883, p. 118.
- Peter Henkel: The steam railcar based on Thomas . In: The railway and its history = series of publications by the district of Darmstadt-Dieburg 2 (Ed .: Georg Wittenberger / Förderkreis Museen und Denkmalpflege Darmstadt-Dieburg). Darmstadt 1985, p. 69f.
- Deutsche Reichsbahn: A hundred years of German railways. Anniversary publication for the 100th anniversary of the German railways . Berlin, 1935, p. 245.
- Lutz Uebel and Wolfgang Richter (eds.): MAN - 150 years of rail vehicles from Nuremberg . Freiburg (EK-Verlag), 1994.
- Peter Zander: Double-decker steam railcars of the Thomas type . In: model railroader. Railway model railway magazine, 38th year. Berlin 1989, No. 2, pp. 17ff.
swell
- Imperial Patent Office: Patent No. 12635: Georg Thomas in Mainz: Steam car for main and branch lines . Berlin 1881.