Richard Paul Wagner

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Memorial plaque on the St. Anna cemetery church in Velburg

Richard Felix Paul Wagner (born August 25, 1882 in Berlin ; † February 14, 1953 in Velburg ) was a German traffic mechanical engineer and from 1923 to 1942 head of Department 23 - Design of Steam and Motor Locomotives - at the Reichsbahn Central Office in Berlin.

Life and career

Born the son of a Berlin haulage contractor, Wagner studied mechanical engineering at the Royal Technical University of Charlottenburg after he passed his matriculation examination at Easter 1901 with the aim of taking the state master builder examination instead of the academic diploma examination so that he could later work as a mechanical engineer at the railroad. Due to the fact that in 1902 the distinction between diploma and master builder exams was no longer available, after passing the exam in March 1906 he was awarded the degree of graduate engineer specializing in traffic engineering. After completing his studies, he entered the service of the Prussian State Railways for the purpose of training as a government site manager, which ended with the passing of the major state examination in spring 1909 (as the best of his year). Study trips to England and the United States followed and various activities in the state railway service, including as a research assistant in a machine inspection and as an inspection officer. With the beginning of the First World War he was assigned to the field railway service at his request , where he headed the machine offices of Sedan , Conflans and Lille . After the end of the war and his discharge from the field railway service, Wagner was initially entrusted with other activities as an inspection officer and temporarily with tasks related to the dissolution of the military railway system.

On April 1, 1920 he was given the management of the locomotive testing office in Berlin-Grunewald . During Wagner's time as head of the experimental department, extensive investigations were carried out on the so-called animal class of the Halberstadt-Blankenburg railway , the P 10 and the Saxon XX HV . In 1922 Wagner became a member of the Select Committee for the Standardization of Locomotives , and from October 1, 1922, he worked as an employee of the Reichsbahn-Zentralamt for six months' training in the position of the head of design by his predecessor Lübken. In 1923 he was then appointed head of department for the design of the locomotives. At first Wagner held the office of a government building council, after promotion on October 1, 1924 that of a higher government building council and after the establishment of the Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft a Reichsbahn Oberrat. In 1935 he was promoted to Reichsbahndirektor and in 1938 to department president.

In 1942, under pressure from Gerhard Degenkolb , Wagner had to resign as head of the department, after he was blamed for the transport crisis of the Reichsbahn in World War II . At his request, he was officially retired on June 1, 1942 for health reasons, and was succeeded by Friedrich Witte . In 1946, at the request of the British occupation authorities, he took over the post of procurement officer in the Bizone again for a short time and then finally retired in 1947. From 1948 until his death he was honorary chairman of the locomotive standards committee , of which he had been a member since 1920. Furthermore, he worked in the research community for sintered metals and oil-free bearing metals and also registered patents in this regard.

Activity as head of construction department

Class 01 express locomotive, typical Wagnerian standard design

With the development of the standard steam locomotives for the Deutsche Reichsbahn, Wagner was able to implement his ideas of an efficient construction and operation of steam locomotives: the smallest possible number of locomotive types, avoidance of substructures and special designs, true to scale, precise production of the components ( fitting system ) and predefined repair stages for the purpose of easier Interchangeability of parts or spare parts without reworking them and the use of as many identical parts or assemblies as possible across the various types of locomotive. At that time a locomotive series program was created in the standardization office, which was sent by all German locomotive manufacturers with engineers, under the direction of August Meister . Together with Meister, Wagner controlled the design of the drafts and approved their execution.

Wagner was shaped by his experiences with the railroad regiments in World War I: frequent breakdowns of the locomotives and problems with the procurement of spare parts and maintenance as a result of the large variety of series of regional railway locomotives and the lack of standardization of the components. From this, Wagner derived the need for simple and maintenance-friendly designs and, as a result, had a partly very effective, but partly paralyzing influence on the design of the standard locomotives. For example, Wagner stuck to a fuel-saving, but inelastic boiler design ("Wagnerian long-tube boiler") and spoke out vehemently against certain types of high-performance boilers, such as the use of a combustion chamber boiler to increase the radiant heating surface and thermal relief of the pipe wall. He also strictly rejected the use of the four-cylinder compound engine, apart from the experimental designs with medium or high-pressure boilers, where it was essential to fully utilize the steam pressure. Four-cylinder compound engines were, however, very successful on the German national railways (for example the Bavarian S 3/6 ) or in other countries (such as the designs by Chapelon in France) despite the higher maintenance requirements. While the test department head Hans Nordmann, after business trips to France and test results on the Norwegian Type 49 , a four-cylinder composite express train locomotive built by Krupp , became skeptical about the prioritization of Wagner's long boiler and the two-cylinder drive, which he had also advocated up to now, Wagner remained with his rejection.

The type program for the standard steam locomotives co-designed by Wagner could only be implemented to a limited extent at the Reichsbahn for economic reasons. The delayed expansion of the route to 20 t axle load also slowed procurement down. Smaller and lighter machines, on the other hand, were built in considerable numbers and proved their worth. Other series did not appear at all or only a few test locomotives or pilot and small series were delivered. It was only with the beginning of war preparations in the German Reich that the heavy 1'E freight locomotives of the type program, the initially unintended light 1'E machines and especially the war locomotives developed from them were built in extremely large numbers. However, the development and construction of the war locomotives were already under the responsibility of Gerhard Degenkolb and Friedrich Witte after Wagner's departure.

The world speed record with the class 05 high-speed locomotive can be considered the highlight of his activity . Wagner's factory is also the largest German steam locomotive series 06 and 45 , but their success, not least because of Wagner's rigid building principles (see above), was not successful.

Today the name Wagner is mainly known among railway enthusiasts for the so-called Wagner smoke deflectors, i.e. the standardized large smoke deflectors of the Reichsbahn steam locomotives, but this component represents only a small part of his work and has never been officially named after him.

Awards

In 1931 Wagner was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Technical University of Aachen for his services in the constructive development of steam and oil locomotives . The British Locomotive Engineers Association awarded him the Gold Medal of Merit in 1936. In 1942 he was awarded the War Merit Cross.

Individual evidence

  1. Alfred B. Gottwaldt: History of the German standard locomotives. The steam locomotives of the Reichsbahn and their designers . Franckh'sche Verlagshandlung, Stuttgart 1978, Reprint Kosmos, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-440-07941-4 , pp. 6-14.
  2. Alfred B. Gottwaldt: History of the German standard locomotives. The steam locomotives of the Reichsbahn and their designers . Franckh'sche Verlagshandlung, Stuttgart 1978, Reprint Kosmos, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-440-07941-4 , pp. 14, 17
  3. Alfred B. Gottwaldt: History of the German standard locomotives. The steam locomotives of the Reichsbahn and their designers . Franckh'sche Verlagshandlung, Stuttgart 1978, Reprint Kosmos, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-440-07941-4 , p. 21.
  4. Alfred B. Gottwaldt: History of the German standard locomotives. The steam locomotives of the Reichsbahn and their designers . Franckh'sche Verlagshandlung, Stuttgart 1978, Reprint Kosmos, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-440-07941-4 , pp. 22-24.
  5. Alfred B. Gottwaldt: History of the German standard locomotives. The steam locomotives of the Reichsbahn and their designers . Franckh'sche Verlagshandlung, Stuttgart 1978, Reprint Kosmos, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-440-07941-4 , p. 60 f.
  6. Alfred B. Gottwaldt: History of the German standard locomotives. The steam locomotives of the Reichsbahn and their designers . Franckh'sche Verlagshandlung, Stuttgart 1978, Reprint Kosmos, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-440-07941-4 , p. 164
  7. Alfred B. Gottwaldt: History of the German standard locomotives. The steam locomotives of the Reichsbahn and their designers . Franckh'sche Verlagshandlung, Stuttgart 1978, Reprint Kosmos, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-440-07941-4 , p. 171 f.
  8. Alfred B. Gottwaldt: History of the German standard locomotives. The steam locomotives of the Reichsbahn and their designers . Franckh'sche Verlagshandlung, Stuttgart 1978, Reprint Kosmos, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-440-07941-4 , p. 18 f. and p. 26 f. with quotes from Wagner about his experiences with the field railway and the resulting demands on locomotive construction in times of war and peace
  9. ^ Giesl-Gieslingen: Locomotive magazine 100
  10. ^ Alfred Gottwaldt : Wagner's standard locomotives: the steam locomotives of the Reichsbahn and their creators, EK-Verlag, Freiburg 2012, ISBN 978-3-88255-738-1 , p. 140
  11. ^ Mierzejewski: The Most Valuable Asset of the Reich
  12. ^ Maedel: The German steam locomotives yesterday and today.
  13. ^ Maedel: The German steam locomotives yesterday and today.

literature

  • Alfred Gottwaldt : German war locomotives 1939-1945, 3rd edition, Franckh, Stuttgart 1983, ISBN 3-440-05160-9
  • Alfred Gottwaldt: Wagner's standard locomotives: The steam locomotives of the Reichsbahn and their creators, EK-Verlag, Freiburg 2012, ISBN 978-3882557381