Robert Garbe (engineer)

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Robert Garbe

Robert Hermann Garbe (born January 9, 1847 in Opole ; † May 23, 1932 in Berlin ) was the Head of Locomotive Procurement at the Royal Prussian Railway Directorate in Berlin from 1895 and was best known for his tried and tested locomotive designs for the Prussian State Railways .

Youth and education

Garbe was the eldest son of locksmith Ferdinand sheaf in the Upper Silesian provincial capital Opole born, went there to the elementary school and learned in his father's business, the locksmith . The desire for further training led him to the building school in Breslau . There he also worked in the main workshops of the Upper Silesian Railway and took his exam as a locomotive driver in the spring of 1867 . He continued to attend the Provincial Trade School in Brieg , passed the final exam with distinction and in 1869 went to the Royal Prussian Trade Academy in Berlin (later the Technical University of Charlottenburg and today's Technical University of Berlin ). He finished his studies in 1872 with the best grades in all subjects. The Upper Silesian Railways took him over as a designer.

Prussian Railway Directorate

In 1873 he moved to the management of the Lower Silesian-Märkische Railway in Berlin. Garbe then became head of the central railway workshop in Frankfurt (Oder) . In 1877 the ministry gave him the management of the main workshop in Berlin-Rummelsburg . In 1879 he was appointed King. Railway machine master and 1882 to the Kgl. Railway machine inspector appointed. In 1890 he was finally promoted to Kgl. Railway director appointed. In 1895 Garbe was appointed director of the Prussian Railway Directorate in Berlin, who was responsible for the design and procurement of locomotives. In this capacity he also chaired the locomotive committee, which had to propose the new locomotives to the Ministry of Public Works.

In 1907 the Prussian Railway Central Office was founded in Berlin. Here Garbe took over the area of ​​"construction of superheated steam locomotives and tenders". He retired on April 1, 1912.

developments

Inspired by the work of Wilhelm Schmidt from Kassel, Garbe came to the conclusion as early as 1893 that the use of superheated steam could increase the performance of steam locomotives. He was a leader in the introduction of superheated steam locomotives in Prussia. In 1898 a Prussian S 3 was fitted with a flame tube superheater, and further tests with a smoke chamber superheater followed. In 1902 Garbe built his first superheated steam freight locomotive, the type G 8 . About 1000 copies of this machine with four coupled axes were built. In 1913, on this basis, the G 8.1 , initially referred to as the "reinforced normal design", was built , of which over 5,000 units had been built by 1921.

The locomotives developed according to the framework guidelines issued by Garbe were characterized above all by good performance and simple construction. Top performance was deliberately not aimed for, while reliability and ease of maintenance had priority in Garbe's designs. According to this scheme, up to Garbe's retirement in 1912, a total of 13 superheated steam locomotive types for all important purposes were built in addition to a few test designs. Garbe's building principles had become so common in Prussian locomotive design that they continued to be used even after he retired.

The Prussian P 8 symbolizes Garbe's construction principles to a large extent . It was built in a total of 3948 copies (including the replicas in Romania) and was in operation on German tracks until the end of the steam locomotive era around 1972–1974.

With the development of a 2'C2 'passenger train tank locomotive for 100 km / h of the T 18 series in 1912 for “shuttle traffic on shorter distances”, Garbe also initiated the later very widespread push- pull service.

Characteristics of the Robert Garbe designs both in the Prussian wet steam and superheated steam locomotives was their increasingly restless running at increasing speed due to inadequate compensation of the to-and-fro masses of the engine, which in the case of the P8, for example, was Garbe's classification as "Schnellzuglokomotive" with 110 km / h only appeared on paper, was reduced in the operational load tables of the Prussian-Hessian State Railway Administration from 1915 to 90 km / h.

The second characteristic was the very narrow and very long grate, because when the boiler is deep, the firebox is between the coupling wheels. This form could only be partially charged with coal by the stoker.

The third characteristic is the typical "Garbe'sche Angstromrohr" of all his constructions, so the chimney has an all too small cross-section, including the front section of the smoke chamber, chimney, cylinder position and wheel set, which is perceived as "ugly".

Because it was recognized very early on that proven parts of the stationary steam engine could not be transferred to the steam locomotive, that every steam locomotive is a complex machine for moving loads, that at the turn of the century no empirically complex experiments and comparisons were made and that at the end of the Länderbahn era Many inventions were still to be designed for everyday use, such as superheaters, preheaters, feed domes, compressed air brakes, start-up devices for high-pressure and low-pressure cylinders acting in conjunction, the cornering ability of the chassis and, above all, the parameters of the components that fit together, and fluid mechanics were not yet available as felt important. Robert Garbe was a stubborn designer among the designers who knew how to assert himself and who touted his idea to the commissions of administrations and factories with as few universal locomotives as possible.

While Garbe's main merit with regard to the technical development of the steam locomotive was the introduction of superheated steam , Garbe was opposed to the composite principle in locomotives; he saw superheated steam as a complete replacement for the complex and maintenance-intensive composite technology, not as a supplement to the same to increase performance.

Probably the most important recognition was given to Garbe after retiring from the civil service: the Technical University of Berlin-Charlottenburg awarded him the honorary doctorate engineer due to his services to the development of the superheated steam locomotive.

Publications

  • The steam locomotives of the present.
    Considerations about the construction and operation, with special consideration of the experiences with the superheated steam locomotives of the Prussian State Railway Administration built with Schmidt superheaters; a manual for locomotive builders, railway officials and students of mechanical engineering
    . Springer, Berlin 1907/1920. Facsimile printing: Steiger, Moers 1981.
  • The contemporary superheated steam locomotive .
    Completion of the work: The steam locomotives of the present . Springer, Berlin 1924. Facsimile printing: Steiger, Moers 1981, ISBN 978-3-921564-34-9 .
  • Hot steam locomotives of the present .
    Short edition of the works Die Dampflokomotiven der Gegenwart (2nd edition 1920) and The contemporary superheated steam locomotive (1924) compiled and edited by Karl Rainer Repetzki, Moers, Steiger 1982

literature

Web links