Henschel-Wegmann train
The Henschel-Wegmann train was a unique train set of the Deutsche Reichsbahn (DR) , which ran from June 1936 to August 1939 in the non-stop express service between Berlin and Dresden . The biased steam locomotive of the series 61 and the cars were covered streamlined.
Emergence
Framework
At the beginning of the 1930s, the Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft was increasingly anxious to introduce high-speed connections. From 1931 diesel high-speed railcars such as the “ Flying Hamburger ” were built and used with great success from 1933. This made the steam locomotive industry a serious competitor. In addition, the Reichsbahn has hardly procured any locomotives since the beginning of the global economic crisis . Comparative calculations showed that the use of steam locomotives could be cheaper than the new diesel multiple units . The mechanical engineering company Henschel & Sohn in Kassel under the direction of director Karl Imfeld was therefore keen to develop a machine that could compete with the performance of diesel multiple units.
Planning
In April 1933, gave representatives of Henschel and the wagon factory Wegmann & Co. General of the German State Railroad Company, Julius Dorpmüller , a study of a speeding steam train that easy 2B1- superheated steam - Tenderlokomotive foresaw a double car whose procurement and maintenance costs low and which at the same time offers travelers the greatest convenience. In order to reduce air resistance , the entire train should be clad in a streamlined manner. The double carriage should be rounded at both ends. The rear of the locomotive, which was also clad in streamlined fashion , was supposed to slide over one of the two ends of the double car, depending on the direction of travel, extending beyond the coal box. An automatic coupling with brake and air lines was provided for connecting the locomotive and car .
When on January 10, 1934 the Reichsbahn locomotive officer Friedrich Fuchs received the representatives of Henschel and Wegmann, however, he confronted them with the Reichsbahn's request for a train with four four-axle cars instead of the two-car train. For this changed requirement, Henschel designed a tank locomotive with a 2'C2 ' wheel arrangement and submitted the corresponding project study to the Reichsbahn headquarters on March 27, 1934. On August 28th, the Reichsbahn officially placed the construction contract for the Henschel and Wegmann companies.
construction
The locomotive was handed over on May 31, 1935. It was approved for a speed of up to 175 km / h, which was also achieved with the 2,300 millimeter drive wheels , albeit with strong twitching movements that were due to the two-cylinder engine and even carried over to the train. The locomotive was therefore not expected to travel at speeds of up to 160 km / h and therefore this streamlined train was used in scheduled traffic between Berlin and Dresden, where the maximum speed at that time was 135 km / h. The sloping water tanks provided the engine driver and stoker with a good all-round view of the route. The »sheet metal jacket«, as the official description goes, completely disguised the engine .
At around 230,000 Reichsmarks , the locomotive was significantly more expensive than initially estimated. However, this included design changes. In comparison, a series 03 series locomotive cost around 200,000 Reichsmarks. Then there was the price for the four cars, 446,800 Reichsmarks. A three-part high - speed rail car (SVT) of the "Cologne" type hit three years later - in series production - with 600,000 Reichsmarks, the one-off SVT DR 137 155 from the engineer Franz Kruckenberg even with one million Reichsmarks.
Shortly after construction of the "61 001" began, the 61 002 locomotive was planned as a variant and built in early 1939. With otherwise the same construction and the same components, the 61 002 received a three-axle trailing frame, a third cylinder and larger storage containers. At the top of the smoke outlet there were smoke deflectors , like those on the streamlined locomotives of the 01.10 and 03.10 series . The first factory test drives were carried out in May and the locomotive was transferred to the Grunewald depot on June 12, 1939 .
Vehicle names and equipment
The Henschel-Wegmann train consisted of:
- the steam locomotive 61 001 , a streamlined tank locomotive with a 2'C2 'wheel arrangement, external cylinders and 2.30 meter high drive wheels; permissible maximum speed: 175 km / h ;
- the steam locomotive 61 002 , a variant of the 61 001 with a 2'C3 'wheel arrangement with three instead of two cylinders;
- an end car (SBC 4ü-35) with 24 seats in the second and 32 seats in the third class as well as four swiveling seats in the panoramic end compartment ;
- two intermediate cars (SBC 4ü) with 12 seats in the second and 56 seats in the third class.
- an end car (SWRPwPost 4ü) with a compartment for sorting mail and parcels during the journey and a dining room with 23 seats.
The car reminded externally to the fast railcars of those years. In order to be able to achieve the desired speed, they were consistently made of lightweight construction and were five to ten tons lighter than ordinary passenger coaches .
The close-coupled cars could only be separated in the workshop. A Scharfenberg coupling was used to connect the locomotive and the car , which also connected the brake air lines. The end cars had rounded end faces and pulled down roofs. The bogies corresponded to the tried and tested Görlitz III design , the wheelsets were on roller bearings . Instead of the usual block brakes , the wagons were given disc brakes that acted directly on the wheel disks.
In 1938 another intermediate car was ordered to increase capacity, but it was not delivered until 1940, so that it was no longer used in scheduled traffic.
business
Presentation of the vehicles
The Henschel-Wegmann train was first presented at the large exhibition for the 100th anniversary of the German railways from July 14th to October 13th 1935 in Nuremberg and then reworked in the Kassel works. On November 29, the vehicles for the anniversary parade were back in Nuremberg, which was followed by a tour of the driver's cab by Hitler . Only after these propaganda events were the technicians able to test the performance.
Test drives
The top speed achieved on the Berlin-Hamburg railway was 185 km / h. At this point there were strong jerks due to imbalances in the twin engine. The train reached the scheduled speed of 160 km / h in six minutes. By May 14, 1936, the locomotive had covered almost 21,000 kilometers of test drives.
Planned operation
| railway station | D 53 | D 57 |
|---|---|---|
| Dresden Central Station | 9:31 a.m. | 5:26 p.m. |
| Berlin Anhalter Bahnhof | 11.12 a.m. | 7:06 p.m. |
| railway station | D 54 | D 58 |
|---|---|---|
| Berlin Anhalter Bahnhof | 3.10 p.m. | 10.10 p.m. |
| Dresden Central Station | 4:54 p.m. | 11:52 p.m. |
When the summer timetable came into effect in 1936, the Henschel-Wegmann train served the Berlin – Dresden route with two pairs of trains per day. The fastest connection needed an hour and 40 minutes for the distance and undercut the previous record holder by 28 minutes, there is still no faster connection. In the official calculation, the Reichsbahn measured the speed only between Berlin and Dresden-Neustadt , so omitted the last kilometers to the main station . So the travel speed of the train could be advertised with 111.2 km / h.
The short turnaround time in Dresden between the D 54 and the D 57 was obviously tight. After all, the locomotive did not simply have to change the end of the train, but also had to renew its supplies. However, it was not necessary to turn the locomotive. The Reichsbahn corrected the mistake as early as the 1936 winter timetable. If the 61 001 locomotive or the wagon set failed, a DR class 01 or DR class 03 locomotive was used. At 130 and 140 km / h, however, they were nowhere near the top speed of the 61 001.
Passengers only had to pay the express train surcharge, not the higher FD surcharge, as in the express railcars .
End of the train
In World War II
Shortly before the German invasion of Poland in August 1939, express traffic in general ended, including between Berlin and Dresden. The wagons came to the Wehrmacht , were initially used for journeys by high-ranking officers , and later to transport the wounded after the interior had been removed.
The locomotive 61 001 was initially used for heating in the Berlin-Grunewald depot . From December 1940 she was in the express train service again in Dresden-Altstadt and received conventional pulling and pushing devices in November 1942. However, the operating logs show only low mileage. From 1943 until the end of the war, the Braunschweig repair shop was responsible for the locomotive.
The 61 002 was presumably approved and approved at the turn of the year 1939/40, so that it was no longer used in scheduled operation in front of the Henschel-Wegmann train. This also applies to a fifth car, still built around 1940, which was in Hamburg-Langenfelde in 1946 together with the other four cars without interior fittings .
After the end of the war
Blue gentian
After the Second World War , the wagons were taken over by the Deutsche Bundesbahn and, after a conversion at the Wegmann company, from 1954 as a train with second-class compartments and after the international changeover of the car classes to the two-class system from 1956 to 1959 as a first-class train Operated under the name " Blauer Enzian " as a long- distance express train F55 / 56 between Hamburg and Munich . The train was extremely comfortable. Wegmann had combined the former third-class compartments in pairs to form larger compartments and supplemented the interior with swivel chairs. However, the five cars of the original train were only sufficient for one train run per day and direction. The return train was therefore composed of two saloon cars (one from the Göringzug ), two unchanged F-Zug dining cars and an end car adapted to the Henschel-Wegmann train. A third class car of usage group 39 ( skirted car ) was converted as the final car for this train composition in order to have a final car comparable to the Henschel-Wegmann train. It was characterized by a rounded glass pulpit. From April 1959, however, only modern new build cars were used. All five original cars were retired in 1962 and scrapped shortly afterwards. The converted apron car has been preserved to this day. This is now a restored exhibit in the possession of the Nuremberg Transport Museum .
Locomotive 61 001
The locomotive 61 001 was in the British zone at the end of the war and was assigned to the Hanover depot . Between July 1945 and March 1946 it covered around 40,000 kilometers in front of passenger trains. A general inspection took place in 1947, and on October 23, 1948, the locomotive was stationed in Bebra , where it was in regular service until May 1949. After a break, she returned to mileage of 3,000 to 10,000 kilometers per month from November 1950. On November 2, 1951, the locomotive was badly damaged in an accident in Münster, whereupon it was retired on November 14, 1952 and scrapped in 1957.
Locomotive 61 002
The locomotive 61 002 initially remained in Dresden and was used in the passenger train service to Bad Schandau. Since around 1950 it was used on the route Leipzig - Berlin (initially Anhalter Bahnhof, after its closure Lichtenberg and Ostbahnhof) in front of express trains (including the D 29). As a single item, it was problematic for ongoing operations. For the test and development center for machine management ( VES-M under Max Baumberg ), however, it was interesting as a test machine for speeds over 160 km / h. It was converted in 1961 by the Deutsche Reichsbahn in RAW Meiningen into a high-speed test locomotive with a tender and the road number 18 201 . With a new boiler, the outer cylinders of the high-pressure locomotive H 45 024 and a new welded inner cylinder (the original cylinders were designed for a steam pressure of 20 bar and accordingly had a diameter that was too small for the 16 bar of the new boiler) and the barrel axis of the H 45 024 it reached speeds of up to 180 km / h.
In 2002 the 18 201 in the current Meiningen steam locomotive works was completely overhauled and was then owned by Dampf-Plus GmbH by Christian Goldschagg and Axel Zwingenberger .
On August 14, 2019, 18 201 was sold to WFL GmbH & Co. KG, Potsdam, due to the closure of Dampf-Plus GmbH.
reception
Lübeck-Büchener Railway
The Lübeck-Büchen Railway Company pursued from 1936 with its streamlined train set of steam locomotives of the 60 series and the double-streamlined Wendezug a similar concept.
Stamp
On October 5, 2006 , Deutsche Post AG published a stamp for the Henschel-Wegmann train at 145 + 55 euro cents with the 61 001 locomotive as part of a welfare stamp series consisting of four stamps .
Models
To date there have been various implementations in model format. One of the first models of the locomotive comes from the Märklin company in nominal size 0 . The hand sample , which never went into production, is on display in the Märklin Museum in Göppingen. The train was also part of a special edition in the nominal size H0 .
literature
- Leonhard Bergsteiner: 175 km / h with steam. 70 years of the Henschel-Wegmann-Zug . In: Lok Magazin . No. 283 Volume 44. GeraNova, 2005, ISSN 0458-1822 , p. 68-72 .
- Alfred Gottwald: The 61 series and the Henschel-Wegmann train. The story of a saloon car train and its steam locomotives. Franckh, Stuttgart 1979, ISBN 3-440-04755-5 .
- Magistrate of the City of Potsdam [Hrsg.]: Catalog. European saloon car exhibition from May 22nd to 23rd, 1993 on the grounds of Raw Potsdam. Potsdam 1993.
Web links
- 61 001 with the Henschel-Wegmann train in 1936 in Dresden main station at the Joachim Schmidt Railway Foundation
Individual evidence
- ↑ Eisenbahn-Kurier - WFL takes over the vehicle fleet of Dampf Plus GmbH. Retrieved August 18, 2019 .
- ↑ Märklin HW 70 12920 "Henschel-Wegmann-Zug", 20 volts Old Gauge 0 Lexicon.