Street scooter

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Two-part 16-wheel Culemeyer street scooter, Nuremberg 1935

The road scooter (colloquially "Culemeyer") is a vehicle trailer for transporting railroad cars and heavy loads on the road ; it was developed from 1930 by Johann Culemeyer , Head of the Reichsbahn-Oberbaurat in the Central Office of Berlin, for the Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft (DRG). This type of freight transport is part of combined freight transport in logistics .

Development history

Due to the increasing transport requirements on the railways, technical solutions and rationalization options were sought. The reason for this was also the increasing motorization of road vehicles, which led to an increasing range of transport by trucks . The freight transport possibilities of the railroad were in competition with the possibilities of the trucks. The small number of vehicles owned by the Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft (DRG) was not enough to survive the competition. Therefore, opportunities were sought to win over companies that were not located near a siding for rail transport. With the “from house to house” concept, container transport was developed which offered customers the option of receiving containers of different sizes or different freight cars on site.

The Reichsbahn-Oberbaurat Ing.Johann Culemeyer - responsible for the mechanical engineering of the DRG - developed a trailer for the transport of railway wagons according to these requirements. This road vehicle, the road scooter , enabled freight cars and heavy loads to be transported economically and easily on the road.

A freight wagon could be brought from a freight yard across the street to a company on a road scooter. This made it possible to transport goods in a wagon to and from a company that did not have a siding. The goods could be loaded or unloaded directly into the wagon or fuel could be pumped directly from the tank wagon into the tanks of a filling station. When the loading was finished, the wagon was put back on the tracks and could be transported over the rails again. However, it was also possible to park a freight wagon with a customer without its own track. For this purpose, a mobile frame, the “mobile siding”, was parked directly on a customer's premises. The mobile siding was a rectangular steel frame on which a wagon was set down by a road roller.

Under the motto "The railroad into the house", the DRG advertised in its advertising brochure at the time for the transport of freight wagons and for the overland transport of heavy goods with road scooters. The road scooter was registered with the patent office on November 29, 1931 under the name of “mobile siding”; the patent was granted on November 9, 1933. On April 27, 1933, the road scooter and its possible uses were officially presented to the press and companies at the Anhalter Güterbahnhof in Berlin.

First customers

PDF of the advertising brochure "The railroad into the house"

After a year of testing the road scooter on the grounds of the Anhalter freight station in Berlin, the first official transport of freight wagons with a road scooter was opened on October 12, 1933 in Viersen on the Lower Rhine . The customer for this regular traffic was " Kaiser's Kaffeeshops GmbH ", which had built its own siding system with sliding platforms on the premises of the chocolate factory and a permanent siding system with a turntable in the courtyard of the boiler house. In the same year the textile factory "Pongs & Zahn" in Viersen- Rahser and the "Petrol Wholesale Company Heinrich Jansen" followed.

On June 15, 1934, the road scooter transport began in the city of Aschersleben ; the first customers were the “Werkzeug-Maschinenfabrik u. Iron foundry Billeter u. Klunz AG ” , followed by the Ludewig brothers wool blanket factory. The road scooter operation for the rolling bearing manufacturer Kugelfischer in Schweinfurt began on July 10, 1934, and between eight and ten freight wagons were carried out daily. On November 2, 1934, freight wagons were started in Elmshorn , including for the Asmussen Brothers Presshefefabrik and the Rostock Brothers AG.

Other major customers included Osram from Berlin and Continental Gummiwerke AG in Hanover . Osram had two detachment tracks on Utrecht Strasse, which were connected to one another by a transfer platform inside the building. From June 5, 1935, the Freiburg brewery Ganter and the silk twine factory Mez AG were the first companies in Baden to use the road scooter services. In Saxony, regular traffic began in January 1935 in the city of Pulsnitz , where the overland power plant and the consumer association were supplied from the freight yard. The street scooter operation was discontinued in Pulsnitz in 1964.

Delivery rate

When the "Culemeyer" was commissioned in the Viersen district in 1933, a delivery rate of around 30 trolleys per week was expected; after just a few months, the peak was 90 cars per week. In the first year a total of 4,284 transports were carried out.

From October 1933 to April 1938 around 163,000 freight cars were transported for 140 customers. In July 1942 there were already 500,000 freight cars that had transported goods on the roads. In addition to transporting railway wagons, the trolley was also used to transport heavy loads such as machines, transformers, boiler systems, locomotives and steel girders. This made the Deutsche Reichsbahn the leading freight forwarder of heavy loads as early as 1934 .

Operational

At the end of 1932, the transports from the Reichsbahnzentralamt für Maschinenbau Berlin were still coordinated by Wolfgang Bode, who had designed the road scooters and special vehicles according to Culemeyer's ideas. To carry out the transports, two columns - consisting of a foreman and several locksmiths and factory workers - were formed. The Reichsbahnzentralamt was responsible for both freight wagons and heavy goods transport. All customer inquiries were checked there, the costs calculated, the respective permits obtained, the transport routes checked and the invoices drawn up.

In order to ensure better utilization of the road scooters and tractors , operating centers were set up in Aschersleben, Berlin, Hanover and Viersen from 1936 onwards. The administration was handed over from the Reichsbahnzentralamt to the Reichsbahn directorates . The operating centers were responsible for the implementation of the transport operations, the workforce consisted of foremen, locksmiths as drivers and factory workers. The operating centers were either housed on the site of a railway depot (Bw) or a freight yard (Gbf) and had their own garages, workshops and offices.

A Kraftwagenbetriebswerk (Kbw) of the respective Reichsbahndirektion (Rbd) was responsible for the maintenance of the vehicle combinations . The Maschinenamt Berlin 5 with the motor vehicle depot Markgrafendamm of the Reichsbahndirektion Berlin was responsible for the maintenance of the vehicle fleet at the Berlin operations center (as of April 1939).

  • Aschersleben operations center, location: Aschersleben depot. Maintenance: Machine Office Halle, Kbw Halle
  • Hanover operations center, maintenance: Machine Office Hamburg, Kbw Hamburg Billstrasse
  • Viersen operations center, location: Viersen freight yard. Maintenance: Machine Office Cologne, Kbw Cologne-Nippes

Types

Culemeyer types

The two-part 16- and 24-wheel and the one-part 16-wheel road scooter were built by Gothaer Waggonfabrik AG (GWF) on behalf of the Deutsche Reichsbahn and according to plans by Johann Culemeyer , while the one-piece 12-wheel road scooter was built by both the wagon and Maschinenbau Aktiengesellschaft Görlitz (WUMAG) as well as by GWF. The maximum speed when transporting with the street scooter was limited to 25 km / h for safety reasons. The road scooters had an air-oil brake, double-blown suspension springs and mechanical steering.

Two-part 16-wheel

The first road scooter for the DRG was an extendable two-part road vehicle with a lowering device based on the Culemeyer design; it consisted of two single frames, each with two axles and eight solid rubber tires. The frames were connected to one another via an adjustable guide rod and had a lowering device to lower the loaded wagons to transport height. This 16-wheeled road scooter, built in 1932, had a load capacity of 31 tons. In 1935 the lowering device was omitted and its load capacity was increased from 31 tons to 40 tons. By inserting an intermediate bridge, the cohesion of the individual frames when overloading railway wagons was guaranteed and the handling of the trailer during transport was also improved.

Two-part 24-wheel

Another street scooter based on the Culemeyer design was also used in 1935. It also consisted of two single frames with guide rods, but with a total of 24 wheels on six axles. A frame had six outside and six inside wheels, each frame was 3737 mm long and 2840 mm wide. It initially had a normal load capacity of 60 tons and a maximum of 80 tons; after its revision in 1938, it was only built with a load capacity of 100 tons. An additional vehicle with two axles and eight wheels, which could be placed between the two single frames, increased the payload from 100 tons to a maximum of 133 tons. There were two variants of additional vehicles, one with a load capacity of 26 tons and one with a load capacity of 33 tons.

One-piece 12-wheel

One-piece 12-wheel road scooter with tank car
Another road scooter was a one-piece road scooter with a total of twelve external wheels. It has a total length of 8,840 mm and a payload of 40 tons. The design came from WUMAG according to the guidelines of Johann Culemeyer. Although the construction plans had been available since 1938 and two copies were already in use at the end of 1938, this road scooter variant was only produced in large numbers (around 80 to 120 pieces) by WUMAG and GWF from 1942.
This design was preferred because of its easier handling compared to the two-part when overloading wagons, but the one-part was increasingly used for the transport of armaments. Due to the lower runway height, the shippers were able to use a mobile loading ramp between the rails and road rollers and thus overload a wagon more easily and quickly. This type of construction made the use of mobile loading ramps possible, which made the previous head ramps superfluous at the given locations. The new loading ramps enabled more flexible loading at different locations. There was also a design for a one-piece 16-wheel design with only outer wheels, but this was never realized.

One-piece, 16-wheel

The first one-piece road scooter with 16 wheels was based on plans by the Gothaer Waggonfabrik (GWF) from 1931, but these were revised by Johann Culemeyer, which meant that only one model of this type was delivered in 1938. This one-piece road scooter had a total length of 9,540 mm, a load capacity of 40 tons and the frame had a continuous driving bridge on four steerable axles with eight outside and eight inside wheels. This road scooter remained a prototype, but was already used in regular rail operations at the beginning of 1938 without lengthy test drives.

In 1933 the Deutsche Reichsbahn owned two street scooters, by the end of 1934 there were 16 and by the end of 1935 there were 32 street scooters. In 1939 the Deutsche Reichsbahn had 49 copies of two-part 16-wheeled street scooters, but only four two-part 24-wheeled street scooters. The prototype of the one-piece 16-wheeler and the two one-piece 12-wheelers still being tested were still in stock. By the end of 1945 the Deutsche Reichsbahn owned around 200 street scooters of various designs, of which around 132 were still operational in 1947. In the first post-war years, the two German railway companies - the Deutsche Bundesbahn (DB) and the Deutsche Reichsbahn  - still used the existing street scooters. Since most of the two-part 24-wheeled road scooters had been confiscated by the German Wehrmacht for heavy transport and were destroyed in the course of the war, only a few copies were available after the end of the war.

Culemeyer types
Manufacturer axes bikes payload comment
Gothaer Waggonfabrik AG
(GWF)		 4th 16 31 t by 1934 two-part
40 t from 1935
6th 24 80 t by 1938
100 t from 1938
2 8th 26 - 33 t Additional vehicle
4th 16 40 t one-piece, prototype
WUMAG and GWF 6th 12 one-piece, only outer wheels

DB types

DB road scooter R40 from 1954

In 1949 the Deutsche Bundesbahn took over about 153 two-part and eight one-part road scooters from the inventory of the Deutsche Reichsbahn and in 1953 had the Kässbohrer company build an improved version of the one-piece 12-wheel road scooter, which was previously built by GWF, DB designation R42. The remaining two-part 24-wheeled road scooters were given the DB designation R80, in connection with the 2-axle additional vehicle the DB designation R130.

Of the 153 two-part 16-wheeled road scooters, DB designation R40, around 73 were also welded with an intermediate bridge and thus became one-piece road scooters of the "R40H2" type, a further 29 pieces were converted into "R40H2" via a fixed intermediate bridge with hinged ramps (excavator bridge). R40H3 ”and about 36 pieces became“ R40H4 ”with a detachable intermediate bridge.

From 1953 onwards, a new generation of road scooters was developed by Siegener Eisenbahnbedarf AG (SEAG) and Waggon- und Maschinenbau GmbH Donauwörth (WMD) on behalf of DB . This one-piece road scooter of the DB design was the LR40 , which was available in variants from LR-40.0 to LR-40.9.

The basic version of the "LR40" was a one-piece, 16-wheeled road scooter with pneumatic tires with only external wheels and a payload of 40 tons. Its own weight was about 8 tons. The axes were symmetrically distributed along the length of the frame. The "LR40" was built by SEAG, but also by WMD for the DB. Later on, SEAG developed the LS70 and LS160 road scooters for handling more complex transport tasks . These series consisted of assemblable single frames. Another type of road scooter was built by WMD in 1954; This one-piece road scooter with pneumatic tires had six axles with double tires and air-hydraulic suspension, but three axles were at the beginning and at the end of the frame.

DB road scooter types
Manufacturer designation axes bikes payload suspension Delivery year overall length comment
SEAG LR 40.0 8th 16 40 t mechanically 1953 8720 mm one piece
LR 40.2 24 60 t 1954 8870 mm one-piece, double tires on the four central axles
LR 40.3 16 40 t air-hydraulic 1958/59 8370-8720 mm one-piece, only external wheels
LR 40.4 1960/62 8720 mm
LR 40.5S 1962
LR 40.6S mechanically 1963/64 8720-8870 mm
LR 40.7S
LR 40.8S 1965
LR 40.9S air-hydraulic 1969/70 9520 mm
LR 40.9S 1970/71
WMD LR 40.0 8th 16 40 t mechanically 1954 8870 mm one-piece, double tires on the outside, prototype
LR 40.5W air-hydraulic 1962/63 8720 mm one-piece, only external wheels
LR 40.6W mechanical 1964 8720-8870 mm
LR 40.7W
LR 40.8W 1965
SEAG LS 70 4th 16 39 t mechanically ? ? mm Basic unit
2 8th 20 t ? ? mm Intermediate element
10 40 99 t ? ? mm maximum combination
LS 160 2 8th 41 t air-hydraulic ? ? mm two-axis basic unit
4th 16 81 t ? ? mm four-axis basic unit
12 48 247 t ? ? mm maximum combination

DR types

One-piece DR road scooter with tank car

After 1949, were in the GDR for the German Reichsbahn from VEB Waggon Gotha (1949 carried out the nationalization of the Gothaer Waggon Fabrik AG for VEB Waggon Gotha) repaired any existing road scooter again and refitted later. Some street scooters were also produced according to the Culemeyer design, but technically revised in order to meet the increased requirements. Since the Deutsche Reichsbahn did not design any new road scooters or orders were placed for a new development, they were all owned by the DR road scooters of the Culemeyer design.

The road scooters were given the designation E 40 II by the DR, but these were carried by VEB Waggonbau Gotha as heavy-duty trailers 40 TGL 5914 and were also equipped with a platform. These 40TGLs were also used by the GDR's National People's Army. The one-piece road scooters with twelve external wheels still in the possession of the DR were also repaired and technically adapted by VEB Waggonbau Gotha.

DR road scooter types (GDR)
Manufacturer designation axes bikes payload comment
Gothaer Waggonfabrik AG E40 4th 16 40t in two parts, from DRG stocks
VEB Waggonbau Gotha E 40 II / 40 TGL two-part, new edition
Gothaer Waggonfabrik AG R42 6th 12 40t one-piece, from DRG stocks
VEB Waggonbau Gotha R42II one-piece, new edition

Other types

Scheuerle road scooter

Due to the discontinuation of the road scooter operation of the DB at many locations, some companies were forced to take over the delivery of freight wagons themselves or have them carried out by other service providers. Not only the purchased DB street scooters were used for this, but also street scooters from other manufacturers.

Other types of road scooters
Manufacturer designation axes bikes payload comment
Scheuerle SR 5 10 40 t one piece
Cometto SpA ELL-EU 4th 16 one-piece, 2 axes at the beginning and end of the frame
R8 8th 32 80 t one-piece, 4 axles at the beginning and 4 at the end of the frame

How the first road scooter works

Extendable two-part road vehicle with lowering device for railroad cars.

The road scooter with a dead weight of around 10 tons and a load capacity of 32 tons can transport a wagon with a 20 ton payload and 11 tons dead weight. It consists of two single chassis that are connected to one another by a movable guide rod. Each individual frame is used to hold an axle of the railroad car. The frames can be pulled apart to the center distance of the wagon. Each single frame has eight wheels with highly elastic tires; each of the wheels is movable. All wheels are connected to one another by a steering linkage so that they can be turned into an arc for cornering. The dimensions of a chassis are 3000 mm long, 2000 mm wide and 150 mm ground clearance without add-on parts. The maximum width over the wheel hubs is around 2821 mm. After the wagon has been pulled onto the road roller, it is lowered to transport height by a manually operated hydraulic lowering device. The lowering device was omitted in street scooters built later to save time when overloading. The brake system is a combined air-oil brake and consisted, among other things, of a single-chamber compressed air cylinder and two oil pressure pumps, which each act on two wheels of a single frame.

Special types of road scooter

In addition to the many types of road scooters as trailers, two special trucks were built for the DRG, which resulted in a combination of road scooter and truck.

Kaelble road vehicle in saddle design with one-piece trailer

This vehicle, delivered in 1933, was a semi-trailer truck with a payload of 32 tons for the transport of railroad cars. The towing vehicle was a three-axle tractor from the Kaelble company , a modification of the Z6R tractor. This resulted in the S6G (DR-70019), a semi-trailer truck in the Reichsbahn version with a 100 hp 6-cylinder diesel engine and two driven rear axles. The matching semi-trailer was a one-piece frame with a total of six wheels that were located on the outside at the end of the vehicle frame.

The Kaelble S6R tractor unit (license plate: DR-70033) delivered in 1935 differed from its predecessor only in terms of the pneumatic tires. The associated semi-trailer had a hydraulic tipping platform with a tipping angle of 50 °. The payload was also 32 tons; it was used to transport freight wagons with bulk goods so that they could be unloaded directly at the customer. These trailers were built by Waggon- und Maschinenbau AG (WUMAG) in Görlitz; they were the only specimens.

Self-propelled Gotha road vehicle

This road vehicle was built by the Gothaer Waggonfabrik in 1934/35 and was a two-part road scooter with three external wheels each, extended by a driver's cab and an air-cooled four-cylinder carburetor engine from Krupp with an output of 60 hp. This motorized street scooter was only driven by one axle and had a load capacity of 32 tons. In 1937 the vehicle became a one-piece self-propelled road scooter with a welded-in intermediate piece. This improved the driving behavior when driving empty. There was only this one example, which was in operation with the DRG from 1935 (DR-77015).

Tractors for the road scooter

German Reichsbahn

The first vehicles were tugs that were used for extensive test drives and load tests with loaded freight wagons. This made it possible to determine the requirements for the required towing vehicles and the manufacturers of the vehicles had a basis for developing them. Since the tugs used were only used for test purposes, suitable tractors now had to be procured for regular operation; these came from the companies Henschel and Kaelble .

The company Kaelble, which had already provided the 72 HP tractor Z4Express, delivered the newly developed three-axle tractor "Z6R / 1" with a 100 HP diesel engine in 1933 and the three-axle tractor "33 DO" with 100 HP came from Henschel -Gasoline engine, both with solid rubber tires. In 1934 the successor from Kaelble followed, the "Z6R" with pneumatic tires, and in 1935 from Henschel the "33 G 0" with a 100 HP diesel engine and pneumatic tires. Since the turning circle of these tractors was too large for city traffic, Kaelble developed the two-axle “Z4GR”, which became the standard tractor for city traffic from 1934 onwards. Due to increasing orders and heavier loads, Kaelble delivered the three-axle tractors of the type "Z6RL" to the Deutsche Reichsbahn in 1937; The revised version, the "Z6R2A100", followed in 1938, and in 1939 the two-axle vehicles of the "Z6GN125" type were added.

Kaelble tractor "Z6R3A"

The rapidly growing area of ​​heavy haulage required even more powerful tractors. This is how Kaelble developed the Z6R3A in 1936 . However, only one tractor of this type was built, but this was documented on many photos of spectacular heavy transports. This heavy-duty tractor, also known as the “Jumbo”, had a displacement of 23.3 liters and an output of 180 hp, and from 1940 after an engine revision, 200 hp (147 kW). From 1940 on, six “Z6W2A130” tractors with 130 hp were added, which were originally developed for the Wehrmacht.

Faun supplied other tractors , albeit only in very small numbers, such as the three-axle Z87, the Z566 with 126 hp and the ZR150 with 150 hp in two or three-axle versions. The ZR150 was also available as the ZRS 150 (tractor / wheel / rail), which was able to run on the rails after the car wheels had been re-assembled onto railway wheels . The ZR150 and the ZRS150 were also delivered to the German Wehrmacht.

Deutsche Reichsbahn (1945–1949)

After the end of the Second World War in 1945, the occupying powers took over the operation of the remaining Deutsche Reichsbahn in the respective occupation zones , so that the organization of the Deutsche Reichsbahn was initially divided into four areas. In the occupation zones, the still existing tractors of the German Wehrmacht or those still remaining in the vehicle fleet were used. Kaelble built new tractors from stocks and vehicles that were still usable, such as the Z6W2A130, which can be easily recognized by the wooden platform and was still in use in 1952.

German Federal Railroad

At the Deutsche Bundesbahn, new tractor units developed by Kaelble such as the K630 ZR, the K631 ZRF, the KV 632 ZB / 62 and the KDVW 421 ZB were added to the DB fleet.

Tatra 141 with road scooter "R40" from the Aschersleben e. V.

Other DB tractors:

  • MAN : MAN 19.361, MAN 26.361DFS (DB 35-072) and F-B2748
  • Faun : F610 / 36ZAN (DB 47-725), F610 / 39 KAN (DB-0464) and HZ40.45 / 45W (DB 47-201)
  • Titan special vehicle construction : Z34.360F and a Z3242S (DB 47-745) based on MAN

Deutsche Reichsbahn (1949–1993)

After 1949, the remaining Kaelble tractors and the Faun type ZR 150 tractors were used by the Deutsche Reichsbahn in the GDR. From around 1958, tractors from the Czechoslovak automobile manufacturer Tatra were used. The first heavy Tatra tractor in use was the type 141, from 1967 the heavy forward control type 813 was also used.

Locations in Germany

Lingen

Faun tractor with Scheuerle road scooter from Hagedorn AG
The Hagedorn NC GmbH in Lingen-Schepsdorf still uses a street scooter for the delivery of nitric acid for nitrocellulose production to this day (2014) . The acid is delivered in a two-axle tank car from the DB to the Lingen train station , from where it is transported to the plant on a Scheuerle company’s own road roller. For pictures of the Hagedorn company transporting road scooters, see the web link .

Steinbach am Wald to Tettau

Since the train traffic on the Pressig-Rothenkirchen-Tettau railway line - the route ran over FRG and GDR territory - was interrupted in 1952 by a line closure by the GDR between Sattelgrund and Welitsch, the Tettau industry was no longer supplied. The German Federal Railroad therefore began in the same year with the supply industry in Tettau by a road roller operation. From Steinbach am Wald to Alexanderhütte , the freight wagons were delivered with road scooters; After the wagons were put on the rails, they were distributed by a small locomotive to the sidings to Tettau and Alexanderhütte. The island operation between Tettau and Alexanderhütte was discontinued by DB at the end of 1983 and continued from 1987 to 1996 by a private forwarding company .

Neheim-Hüsten – Sundern railway line

On October 1, 1964, the Deutsche Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft GmbH introduced regular road scooter traffic for the Neheim-Hüsten-Sundern railway line . The basic equipment of the Kleinbahn initially included three trolleys taken over from Plettenberger Kleinbahn and a Kaelble tractor acquired from Deutsche Bundesbahn . Another Kaelble tractor and two more road scooters were added later. The five road scooters were from the manufacturers Cometto type ELL-EU; Kässbohrer type R42 and WMD type LR40. With this fleet, the private railway company regularly transported freight wagons between the various loading points and some companies in the cities of Sundern, Westenfeld, Hachen, Hövel and Müschede. After the Röhrtalbahn was taken over in 1977 by the AG Ruhr-Lippe-Eisenbahnen , which was later incorporated into the Regionalverkehr Ruhr-Lippe GmbH, the street scooter operation continued until May 28, 1994.

Selection of Germany

In 1964 there were about 123 places for regular scooter traffic in the FRG.

Places of use of road scooters in the FRG
city route Period
Celle Celle-Nord, OHE -betriebswerk 13 for Schilling-Bierverlag until 1980
Dorum Dorum station to Ahlen-Falkenberg to the peat factory until 1983
Geislingen Geislingen station to Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG until 1985
Glinde Glinde train station to Schönau (municipality of Ohe), Kornbrennerei Schönau GmbH, spirits cleaning plant
Heilbronn Heilbronn-Süd train station to Landauer & Macholl (Hammer distillery) until 1980
Messel Bahnhof Messel for paraffin and mineral oil plant Messel until 1960
Rohrsen Rohrsen station to Heemsen- Lichtenmoor , Düvelshoop Harms & Busch peat plant until 1983
Türkheim Türkheim (Bay) Markt station to the Salamander-Industrieprodukte GmbH premises until 1996
Pinneberg Pinneberg zu Binné & Sohn station, bitumen transport 1955 -?
Walkenried Walkenried station to the Walkenried plaster factory 1953 -?
Rewards Peat works in Kroge to Lohne train station until 1990

Selection of GDR

In 1964 there were around 120 cities in the GDR for regular scooter traffic.

Places of use of street scooters in the GDR
city route Period
Altenburg Altenburg station to the vinegar factory, ( Tatra 141 and R42)
Aschersleben Aschersleben station to WEMA and VEB Optima (Bestehorn paper mill)
Berlin Maintenance workshop Friedrichsfelde to Bahnhof Berlin-Schöneweide ; General inspections of
the Berlin subway vehicles in the Raw Schöneweide 		until 1989
cottbus Cottbus station , delivery of curing salt to the butcher shop in Petersilienstraße until around 1990
Eilenburg Eilenburg freight yard, loading ramp 1991 still available
Guben Guben station to MTS Groß Breesen and Horticultural Production Cooperative (GPG) 1937 to about 1986
Halle (Saale) Thuringian freight station to the chemical plant Habrinol (Tatra 141 and R40)
Karl Marx City Chemnitz-Altendorf in the city area until 1980
Salzmünde Salzmünde Süd train station to the former Salzmünde train station until 1993

Heavy goods transport with road scooters

Due to the possible uses of the road scooters and tractors, the load capacity and the maneuverability, the Reichsbahn was also able to carry out not only wagons, but also heavy load transports of other goods on the road. As early as May 1934, the Deutsche Reichsbahn carried out some special trips with four-axle passenger cars, dining cars and sleeping cars to the Berlin exhibition “German People - German Work”, which led various companies to become aware of these transport options.

One of the first heavy loads to be transported over long distances and with a high weight was the transfer of a 38-tonne paper Yankee cylinder on behalf of Voith from Heidenheim in May 1935 . It was brought from Heidenheim to Neckarsulm, 127 kilometers away, in three and a half days. Just as the delivery rate of wagons has increased every year since the road scooters were put into operation, the number of heavy-duty transports carried out also increased. In 1934 about 19 transports were carried out, in 1935 there were 37 and in 1936 there were already 95 transports.

Heavy load transport

  • The transport of the 75-tonne grave keystone of the new crypt for Paul von Hindenburg from the Hohenstein train station to the Tannenberg Imperial Memorial in East Prussia.
  • In 1936 a 24-ton hull was transferred on behalf of the Sulzer brothers from Winterthur, Switzerland. The motor ship “Arenberg” was intended for the Swiss steamboat company “Untersee und Rhein” in Constance on Lake Constance
  • The transport of the Olympic bell from Bochum to Berlin with an R40 road scooter in 1936
  • In October 1937 the largest paper Yankee cylinder in the world was transferred on behalf of the Voith company from Heidenheim . This weighed 65 tons and had a diameter of 5 meters. It was transported from Heidenheim to Heilbronn Neckarhafen by a Kaelble tractor Z6R3A on two two-part road scooters of the type R80
  • 1938 Transport of a 90-ton casting from a press from the M&W factory in Karlsruhe on a 24-wheeled road scooter with an additional vehicle to the Karlsruhe freight yard
  • Winter 1939 Transfer of a 60-ton transformer from the ELIN company from Weiz to the Walchensee power plant in Austria. 24-wheeled road scooter R80, tractors Kaelble Z6R3A and a Kaelble Z6R2A100
  • May 1940 the transfer of a 67 meter long inland tanker from the Elbe in Dresden to Ingolstadt via the Berlin – Munich motorway
  • In 1940 15 river tankers and in 1942 six submarines of the 30th U-Flotilla were transferred from the Elbe in Dresden over more than 300 kilometers on the motorway to the Danube in Ingolstadt. Each tanker weighed about 140 tons and each submarine about 274 tons, after removing all parts that were not necessary for transport. As a rule, up to four adapted Culemeyer R40s were used, pulled, pushed and braked by up to four Faun ZR150 or Kaelble Z6W2A130.
  • The barge ferry F411 was transferred to the Mediterranean with four road scooters of the "R80" and three Kaelble-type tractors Z6R2A130 of Germany.
Self-propelled gun on a Culemeyer road scooter "R80"

The German Wehrmacht mainly used road scooters to transport heavy equipment or guns. To transport a mortar belonging to the Mörser-Karl group, two road scooters were required; to do this, a mortar was broken into two units. One unit was the 28-ton gun and the other was the mortar's self-propelled gun , see picture on the right.

End of street scooter operation

In the mid-1970s, when the Deutsche Bundesbahn's low-loader fleet was renewed, the road scooters were largely replaced by the Scheuerle transporters. The German Federal Railroad ended the delivery of goods wagons with street scooters in 1987. Most street scooters and tractors were sold to private companies, which then carried out the street scooter operation themselves.

The road scooter was by the great influx of trucks - swap bodies and ISO containers replaced, but is still used by various private companies or special overpasses of railway vehicles.

Road scooters and tractors to be visited

See also

Literature and Sources

  • DB service regulations, DV 923 D / X, description and maintenance instructions for the LR 40 road scooter (Appendix X to the vehicle regulations). Edition 1971.
  • Deutsche Bundesbahn: DB - freight cars, containers, pallets. Advertising and information office for passenger and goods traffic, Frankfurt (Main) 1955.
  • Deutsche Bundesbahn: DB - freight wagons, large containers, road scooters, piggyback transport. Advertising and information office for passenger and goods traffic, Frankfurt (Main) 1961.
  • Deutsche Bundesbahn: DB - freight wagons, large containers, road scooters. Advertising and information office for passenger and goods traffic, Frankfurt (Main) 1965.
  • Johann Culemeyer: Deutsche Reichsbahn. The railroad into the house. One year traffic with road vehicles for railway wagons. Otto Elsner KG, Berlin 1935.
  • Johann Culemeyer: The train into the house. Otto Elsner Verlagsgesellschaft, Berlin 1939.
  • Johann Culemeyer: The road vehicle for railroad cars: a traffic task and its solution. Dissertation from 1934. Techn. Hochsch. Hanover 1938.
  • AB Gottwaldt: Deutsche Reichsbahn 1935. Franckh'sche Verlagshandlung, Stuttgart 1975.
  • Thorsten Heese: New ways through the country - 150 years of the railway in the Herford district. Publishing house for regional history, 2nd edition 1998.
  • Matthias Hengst: Train into the house. In: Railway Journal. June 2001 edition, Hermann Merker Verlag, Fürstenfeldbruck 2001.
  • Gerhard Hutschenreuther: Danube shipping. Book publisher of the Mittelbayerische Zeitung, Regensburg 1990.
  • J. Wahl, A. Luig: Kaelble. Podszun-Verlag, 1999.
  • B. Wenzel, H. Braun: Road vehicles of the German railways. TMG Verlag GmbH, Gifhorn 1987.
  • Wolfgang H. Gebhardt: Faun. Trucks 1916–1988. Series: Typenkompass, Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 2006.

Web links

Commons : Culemeyer  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Image archive of the Eisenbahnstiftung, search for 'Z6 R3A' or 'Culemeyer' , accessed on January 1, 2019
  2. ^ Helmuth Mueller: From the Elbe to the Danube. Retrieved October 6, 2018 .