Crocodile (locomotive)

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SBB Historic Crocodile Locomotive Ce 6/8 III in green paint scheme in Oberbuchsiten , 2011

A crocodile locomotive is a longer, symmetrical electric locomotive in which the chassis is divided into two frames , each with longer, low and narrow stems and an open platform. A shorter locomotive box is articulated as a central part of the two frames, each with a running axle and the drive axles and electric motors driven by inclined rods , in which the two driver's cabs are housed and on the roof of which there are two pantographs .

The first evidence for the nickname crocodile locomotive relates to the green Märklin models in gauge 0 , item CCS 66/12920, as well as gauge 1 , item CCS 66/12921, which move like a reptile through curves when driving through routes and counter bends meander and are called that for the first time in the Märklin catalog from 1933/1934. They are a replica of the Ce 6/8 II and Ce 6/8 III freight locomotives of the Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) which were put into operation from 1919.

Term crocodile locomotive

It is assumed that the designation crocodile locomotive introduced by Märklin in 1933 was soon no longer used only by model railroaders, but was also transferred to the prototype locomotives . The term does not originally come from the railway environment. There is no evidence that the term was used for other locomotives until the 1970s than for the SBB Ce 6/8 II and Ce 6/8 III , the SBB De 6/6, the RhB Ge 6/6 I and the DB series E 93 and E 94 (KLE 2). Even Märklin does not use the term crocodile locomotive for the E 94 in its catalog from 1967, but the term heavy electric freight locomotive .

The term crocodile locomotive does not appear in the standard works by the railroad worker and model railroader Peter Willen, Lokomotiven der Schweiz 1, Normalspur Triebfahrzeuge und Lokomotiven der Schweiz 2, Narrow-gauge Triebfahrzeuge from 1972 (both 2nd edition) from Orell Füssli Verlag . Neither the various SBB Ce 6/8 and 6/8 Be still at De 6/6 and not with the RhB Ge 6/6 I .

But in the standard work by Claude Jeanmaire-dit-Quartier: The electric and diesel locomotives of Swiss railways. Fifth part: the locomotives of the Swiss Federal Railways (SBB). Archive no. 36, from 1979, from the Eisenbahn Verlag, ISBN 3-85649-036-1 , the term crocodile locomotive can be found in the various SBB Ce 6/8 and Be 6/8 locomotives. However, this is unofficial with the restriction . The SBB De 6/6 are called small crocodile locomotives .

It was only when the term crocodile locomotive was watered down in the 1980s that the term was also assigned to other locomotives. Even if the essential characteristics of a real crocodile in terms of appearance, proportions or gait were not reproduced. For example, the green color scheme or the longer, low, narrow and sloping stems and the shorter locomotive body for a well-proportioned head, body and tail , the rod drive and an articulated design for the typical gait.

Swiss crocodile Ce 6/8 II and Ce 6/8 III

SBB Ce 6/8 III 14301-14318

The nickname crocodile locomotive was already used in the Märklin catalog from 1933/1934 and originally refers to the Märklin models of the Ce 6/8 II , later partly Be 6/8 II and Ce 6/8 III , later partly Be 6 / 8 III of the SBB, which were developed by the Maschinenfabrik Oerlikon (MFO) and the Schweizerische Lokomotiv- und Maschinenfabrik (SLM) in Winterthur for heavy freight train service on the Gotthard mountain route . In order to make the long locomotives manoeuvrable in the tight curves, the chassis was divided into two frames, which are connected with a close coupling and provided with longer, low and narrow bodies. A short locomotive box is carried by the two bogies, which does not have to absorb any tensile forces and which houses the two driver's cabs and the transformer . The three-part division into "snout", "body" and "tail", the rotating movements of the coupling rods reminiscent of the gait of a crocodile , and the green color may have mainly contributed to the origin of the nickname.

The main difference between the Ce 6/8 II crocodile locomotives and the Ce 6/8 III is that the Ce 6/8 II is driven by a countershaft, triangular rods, jackshaft and coupling rods, whereas the Ce 6/8 III has one Winterthur helical rod drive . In the course of time it turned out that the Ce 6/8 III with the Winterthur helical rod drive run more restlessly than the Ce 6/8 II at higher speeds . In western Switzerland, these machines are nicknamed Berceuse, which means rocking chair in German.

Today the SBB Ce 6/8 II and Ce 6/8 III are variously referred to as the Swiss crocodile , SBB crocodile or large SBB crocodile .

Several locomotives have been preserved, including the Be 6/8 II No. 13254 in the Verkehrshaus in Lucerne in SBB green color. A large part of it has been preserved in working order, including the Ce 6/8 II 14253 from SBB Historic in SBB brown coloring.

Rhaetian crocodile Ge 6/6 I

RhB Ge 6/6 I crocodile of the Rhaetian Railway

The Ge 6/6 I is a brown meter-gauge and electric universal locomotive of the Rhaetian Railway (RhB), which was put into operation from 1921. In many respects it is similar to the Ce 6/8 II and Ce 6/8 III crocodile locomotives of the SBB. It can be described as the little brother of these two locomotive series, but has no leading axles and no open platform at the locomotive ends. This is why railway enthusiasts refer to it as the Rhaetian Crocodile , although the RhB staff has long known the designation CC , corresponding to the C'C ' wheel arrangement, as a nickname.

Seetal crocodile De 6/6

SBB De 6/6 Seetalbahn-Krokodil

The De 6/6 is an electric, originally SBB-green , later red-brown, then brown-red, SBB freight locomotive, which was procured and put into operation specifically for the lines of the former Seetalbahn in 1926 . It is noticeably similar to | in its external appearance as well as its proportions the meter-gauge Rhaetian crocodile Ge 6/6 I , which also has a Winterthur diagonal rod drive and no running axles. In contrast to the Rhaetian crocodile, it has open platforms at the ends of the locomotive, such as the crocodile locomotives Ce 6/8 II and Ce 6/8 III of the SBB, but only one pantograph arranged in the middle of the locomotive body. Railway fans have long referred to it as the Seetal crocodile .

Austrian crocodile series 1100 and 1100.1

Austrian 1189.05 (1985)

The BBÖ 1100 and 1100, later ÖBB 1089 and 1189 are electric express train locomotives originally in green , which were put into operation on the Arlberg from 1923 . They correspond in all relevant points to the crocodile locomotives Ce 6/8 II and Ce 6/8 III of the SBB. This is why railway enthusiasts refer to them as the crocodile locomotive or the Arlberg crocodile, although the staff is familiar with the nickname Neinundochzger for 89, which corresponds to part of the series designation.

German crocodile series E 93 and E 94 (KLE 2)

The E 93 and E 94 series, the latter also known as War Electric Locomotive 2 (KLE 2), is a green electric freight locomotive that was originally supplied to the Deutsche Reichsbahn . Both locomotive series have long been referred to as German crocodile locomotives, although they differ in some points from the crocodile locomotives Ce 6/8 I and Ce 6/8 II , they have a paw-bearing drive and no rod drive, no open platform and shorter ones , low and wide stems instead of longer, low and narrow stems. The 1020 series of the Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB) corresponds to the E 94 series. From the E 94 series, several locomotives were also in service with the SBB in Switzerland at the end of the 1980s.

French crocodiles

French SNCF CC 1101 Mille Pattes in Villeneuve-St-Georges
Green SNCF BB 12125 in the Cité du Train in Mulhouse

The E 1000 series with the nickname Mille Pattes , German-speaking millipede , the Chemin de Fer de Paris à Orléans (PO), which ran as the CC 1100 at the SNCF , had a rod drive but a rigid one-piece locomotive body.

Outside of France, the term "French crocodile" is also found for the series BB 12000 , BB 13000, CC 14000 and CC 14100 of the SNCF. In France, however, they are usually referred to as Fer à repasser , in German-speaking irons . The proportions of the originally green locomotives are similar to the Ce 6/8 I and Ce 6/8 II of the SBB, but have no joints but a frame. They have neither running axles nor a rod drive, but a single axle drive like the German E 93 and E 94 series. A locomotive of this series was exhibited at the 1979 exhibition of crocodiles from all over Europe in the Lucerne Museum of Transport . As of 2020, it is not known that the 3600 series delivered to the Luxembourg State Railways, which corresponds to the French BB 12 000 series, is called a crocodile; these machines were never painted green either.

The name Crocodile , in German-speaking crocodile , has a train control system in France .

More crocodile locomotives

The name crocodile locomotive was subsequently watered down by the Internet and the emerging model railroad and railway Internet forums from the mid- 2000s and was also used for locomotives that looked similar and / or technically similar, even if these locomotives were never green, had no rod drive and no longer, low and narrow superstructures. During this period, terms such as real crocodiles, fake crocodiles, small crocodiles or even people's crocodile emerged, after terms such as small and large crocodile had already existed.

Another source traces the name crocodile locomotive back to John Cockerill , whose cockerill locomotive factory produced a similar-looking steam locomotive in 1851, the seraing of the Imperial and Royal Southern State Railroad . However, there is no contemporary evidence of this. Rather, it is a confusion of the term Cockerill as a family name and company name with the English-language name for crocodile: Crocodile. Articulated steam locomotives have their own names for the design. For example, Fairlie , Mallet (locomotive) , Garratt (locomotive) locomotives.

Watering down the term crocodile locomotive

In the case of model railways, the name crocodile locomotive mostly refers to the SBB Ce 6/8 and Ce 6/8 and the Seetal crocodile, the Rhaetian crocodile and the Austrian crocodiles of the 1100 and 1100.1 series. The German crocodiles of the series E 93 and E 94 (KLE 2) and the French crocodiles of the series BB 12000, BB 13000, CC 14000 and CC 14100 have not been so designated in recent times, as both locomotive types have essential characteristics of one Crocodiles do not, for example the rod drive.

With regard to the original Märklin tinplate crocodile locomotives, the following terms are common:

Märklin gauge 0 Tinplate People's Crocodile RV 66 12960
  • Real crocodile locomotive or original crocodile locomotive : A crocodile locomotive manufactured by the Märklin company. There are green, brown and white crocodile locomotives. It is considered proven that Märklin also produced a few brown crocodile locomotives for individual customers. There are also a few white lines labeled New York Central Lines that Märklin produced for the American market shortly before the Second World War.
  • Replica crocodile locomotive : A crocodile locomotive recently reproduced by a third party in green, brown or white colors. For example by the companies Hehr or Selzer.
  • Fake crocodile locomotive : A replica of a crocodile locomotive or replicas from Eastern Europe issued as a real Märklin locomotive, mostly reworked accordingly.
  • People's crocodile : The imitation track 0 and 1 with the rod drive built by the Märklin company at the time was not exactly cheap. For this reason, Märklin also produced a greatly simplified and abbreviated imitation that was affordable for the model railroaders of the time.

It looks a little different with the small series manufacturers and model makers. There is a tendency to water down here, probably also for marketing reasons.

Maneuvering crocodile Ee 6/6

The SBB Ee 6/6 series is called the shunting crocodile .

Bernina crocodile Ge 4/4

RhB Ge 4/4 182 in the Lucerne Museum of Transport

The original Ge 4/4 82 locomotive on the Bernina Railway was called the Bernina Crocodile , based on the machines of the neighboring Rhaetian Railway.

BVZ crocodile HGe 4/4 11–15

In the former Brig-Visp-Zermatt-Bahn , originally Visp-Zermatt-Bahn, which merged to form the Matterhorn-Gotthard-Bahn , the BVZ HGe 4/4 11–15 are known as BVZ crocodiles because of their appearance . However, these are "fake crocodiles", as the locomotives have a one-piece, non-articulated structure and two bogies.

Conversely, the Gm 4/4 , which is technically a crocodile, is called a moose .

Prussian EG 511 to EG 537

The locomotives of the DR series E 71.1 , originally Prussian EG 511 to EG 537, are also known as crocodiles because of their design .

Basque crocodile FEVE series 4000

Locomotive 4001 in 1977 at the head of a train in Bilbao Axturi

In 1928 Brown, Boveri & Cie. (BBC) and Forges Usines et Fonderies Haine-Saint-Pierre (FUF) ten electric locomotives of the later FEVE series 4000 for the then Compañía de Ferrocarriles Vascongados as part of the electrification of meter-gauge lines in the Basque Country . In connection with the takeover of two meter-gauge Mallet steam locomotives from Portugal by La Traction in the Swiss Jura in 1992, the locomotive number 4004 belonging to Ferrocarriles de Vía Estrecha (FEVE) from Spain was imported into Switzerland defective and as Ge 4/4 4004 designated. German-Swiss hobby railroaders nicknamed these locomotives crocodile locomotives, Spanish-speaking Cocodrilo, probably because of visual similarities with the German crocodile locomotives of the E 93 and E 94 (KLE 2) series and those used by hobby model railroaders and hobby railroaders as BVZ-Krokodil designated BVZ HGe 4/4 11–15 of the former Brig – Visp – Zermatt Railway (BVZ). Strictly speaking, the hobby railroaders called the locomotive a fake crocodile because the locomotive, like the BVZ crocodile, has no articulated construction. The reconditioning of the locomotive failed. The dismantled locomotive was disposed of in 2015. The locomotive and the name were forgotten again. There is no consistent evidence that this locomotive was called a crocodile locomotive, except by the German-Swiss amateur railroaders of the time. This term crocodile locomotives is also not found in the references given by Theo Stolz.

India

A modification of the crocodiles used on the Gotthard Railway were the EF / 1 class locomotives used by the Great Indian Peninsula Railway between Bombay and Pune from 1928 , which later bore the designation WCG-1 at Indian Railways . While the mechanical part of the first ten locomotives was built by the Schweizerische Lokomotiv- und Maschinenfabrik (SLM) in Winterthur , the following 31 were built by the British Vulcan Foundry . The electrical part of all vehicles came from Brown, Boveri & Cie. (BBC) and was built under license by Metropolitan Vickers .

gallery

model

Märklin H0 crocodile from 1959

The Märklin company presented its first crocodile locomotives in the 1933/34 catalog in gauge 0 and gauge 1 and has been producing new series in all gauges ever since . An original 1-gauge crocodile from that year - which originally cost 290 RM , at that time the average monthly wage for a worker, was auctioned off at Christie's in 1997 for 100,000 DM .

A well-known manufacturer of Swiss crocodile locomotives is Märklin with the brands Märklin, Trix, Minitrix and LGB. Märklin is producing these locomotives for lanes 1, H0, N and Z as of 2020. The Rhaetian crocodile is sold in the IIm track. The former company RaiMo offered a plastic kit of the Swiss crocodile for 0 gauge.

Several manufacturers are producing the German crocodile as of 2020 for all common gauges. The German crocodile for gauge 1 is marketed under the brand name Märklin. By MTH Electric Trains for gauge 0. For gauge H0, the German crocodile is sold by Märklin, Trix, Roco and Kleinbahn, among others. For the TT track under the brand name Tillig.

BEMO Modellisenbahnen produces the Rhaetian Crocodile for the H0m and H0e tracks.

The company Lego introduced in 1991 under the Article 4551 a red imitation of the German crocodile for the then-new 9-volt system the track L in front, which is now considered rare. A similar green version followed later with article 7898 and a red imitation of the Swiss crocodile under article 10183. Since 2020 there is a new model in brown color under item number 10277.

literature

  • Christian Zellweger: Fascination Crocodile: Pictures of a Railway Legend. AS Verlag, Zurich 2013. ISBN 978-3-906055-15-2
  • Beat Moser, Peter Pfeiffer: Crocodiles: Legendary electric locomotives. Railway Journal Special 1/2012. VGB Publishing Group Rail. ISBN 978-3896103574
  • Christian Zellweger: Crocodile: Queen of the electric locomotives. Edited by SBB Historic. AS Verlag, Zurich 2005. ISBN 3-909111-19-X
  • Helmut Griebl: Austria's crocodile - the 1100 / E 89/1089 series. Railway picture archive, EK-Verlag, Freiburg 2005, ISBN 978-3-88255-350-5
  • R. Heym: crocodiles. Impressions from Klaus Meyer . In: LOK MAGAZINE . No. 238 / Volume 40/2001. GeraNova Zeitschriftenverlag GmbH Munich, ISSN  0458-1822 , pp. 22-25.
  • Ulf Degener: 1995: Goodbye crocodile. Farewell to the ÖBB series 1020 . In: LOK MAGAZINE . No. 280 / Volume 44/2005. GeraNova Zeitschriftenverlag GmbH Munich, ISSN  0458-1822 , pp. 66–68.
  • Peter Willen: Locomotives of Switzerland, Volume 1: Standard gauge traction vehicles . Orell Füssli Verlag, Zurich, 1970
  • Peter Willen: Locomotives of Switzerland, Volume 2: Narrow-gauge locomotives . Orell Füssli Verlag, Zurich, 1972

Web links

Wiktionary: Crocodile  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. Märklin double set Ce 6/8 II , SBB, H0 gauge, item 37565, crocodile double set, product description accessed on December 28, 2019
  2. Operating group 13302, technology of the crocodile locomotive Be 6/8 III 13302, accessed on December 28, 2019
  3. Helmut Stalder: Crocodile - the reptile from the prehistoric times of electrical engineering lives NZZ, April 29, 2020, accessed on May 2, 2020
  4. Swiss amateur railways, 1/80, page 11.
  5. ^ German-language Märklin catalog from 1967 , accessed on January 25, 2020
  6. www.sbbhistoric.ch SBB-Braun, mixture in a ratio of 1: 1 of nut brown RAL 8011 and NCS S7020 Y70R accessed on January 15, 2020.
  7. Märklin Article 37524, Seetal-Krokodil, SBB green, epoch (model railroad) III , accessed on January 12, 2020.
  8. Märklin article 37511, Seetal crocodile, red-brown, mid-1960s, epoch (model railroad) III , accessed on January 12, 2020.
  9. Märklin Article 37526, Seetal crocodile, brown-red, museum locomotive Era (model railroad) VI , accessed on January 12, 2020.
  10. B. Studer: The crocodiles in Austria . In Eisenbahn Amateur (magazine) 09/1979, pages 527 to 530.
  11. ^ German Crocodile Interest Group , accessed on January 16, 2020.
  12. ^ Clive Lamming : Les réseaux français et la naissance de la SNCF (1938–1950) . 2006, ISBN 2-8302-2147-8 , pp. 62 f .
  13. www.maerklin.de, Multi-purpose locomotive series BB 12 000 of the French State Railways, quote: Because of their unusual appearance, they quickly got the nickname iron in France . In contrast, they are known abroad as the French crocodile . accessed on January 20, 2020.
  14. www.maerklin.de, Series 3600 Luxembourg State Railways, no crocodile, also no iron , accessed on January 20, 2020
  15. 10. The Development of Electric Locomotives .
  16. II
  17. III
  18. www. tischbahn.de The legend - the 0-gauge crocodile CCS 66/12920 , accessed on January 26, 2020.
  19. www.selzer-toy-auction.com, Selzer Krokodile , accessed on January 27, 2020.
  20. WCG-1 (EF / 1) 'Crocodile / Krokodil' on irfca.org
  21. The crocodile as a Märklin model ( memento from March 17, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) at www.maerklin.de , accessed on August 11, 2014
  22. www.mthtrains.com, MTH Electric Trains, Catalog 2018 European Models , accessed on January 30, 2020.