Old School German Engineering

[Glenn Brooks]

Couldn’t help but copy and share this video of a bunch of magnificent turn of the century live steam locos. German club I think. the machining skill and video composition are Supberb. Now, Iam dropping everything to make a couple of those open shaft, steam driven water pumps!

Hope you enjoy.

https://youtu.be/wG7nvWRxGXs

Glenn

[hoppercar]

To bad they cant make the same claim.about german machine tools....what a bunch of junk....we have a lot of german equipment on our production floor, and they are a maintnance nightmare...parts wont interchange on the same machine, and it doesnt matter what it is, spare parts take 6 months to get from germany

[daves1459]

Is there a reason why the German railroads often painted the chassis and wheels of their steam locomotives red?

The company I worked for had two factories in the Heidelberg area. The production machinery was top quality. The Tool Room machinery was fist class and workers very capable, nice guys too and always eager to help.

Dave

[Harold_V]

Hmmm. The comment about German machine tools is rather interesting. They are known for their high quality and excellent design, and are highly respected machines. An example is the Deckel line of machine tools.

That spare parts may be difficult to obtain wouldn't surprise me. It's not easy dealing with foreign purchases.

H

[EOsteam]

I have limited experience with German production machinery. However, my German lathe (imperial not metric) made by Meuser is a beautiful piece of machinery. I am it’s third owner and I couldn’t be happier. It cuts a huge number of threads metric, imperial and others all with just the quick change levers. There is only one changewheel which I haven’t had to use yet.
In my primary field of work as a dentist, all of my German made tools are among the finest quality available. When purchasing for the office, if it is American, German or Japanese manufactured, we rarely have issues.

[timmy wheeler]

Dave, I think one of the benefits of using the red paint is that cracks are easier to see. The crack shows up as a thin black line against the red background. A little dirt, oil , or grease in the crack really helps.....

Timmy

[Asteamhead]

Hello Glenn,
Thanks for posting that nice video of that steam meeting at Oberursel near Frankfurt! My A 1239 had one of their first runs then, not painted, yet.
Interesting different comments regarding quality of tools, too. A Deckel mill FP 1 or 2 was (and still is) the dream machine for us modellers.
Timmy,
You're right regarding the advantage of the red colour. Anyhow, don't those engines of DR and DB are looking realy fine in their red (RAL 3000) and black outfit (photo) . A clean shiney black with a silvery smokebox of freshly outshoped US engines will do, too so I think

Keep on steaming!
Asteamhead

[Pontiacguy1]

The Germans are just like everyone else... They can make great stuff and they can make unreliable stuff. Seems that a lot of the German stuff that we dealt with was over-engineered and although it could do extremely fine work, it was very finicky and would need frequent adjustments and tweaking to keep it running... something it didn't always get on a factory floor. Thus they got the reputation in our plant of being temperamental. Parts were Super-expensive and took a long time to get. Sometimes parts were obsoleted and were no longer available, so we'd have to figure out a retrofit. That part is normal from just about any machine tool manufacturer.

[Andypullen]

I spent the day with Asteamhead and Steamchris last summer at the Huserland track. What a great group of guys! The craftsmanship is phenomenal! Every locomotive ran very well and they all were very welcoming. I can't thank you guys enough for a fun day!

[Asteamhead]

Hello Andy,
You're welcome! Yes indeed, we all had a fine day then

And just another word about the prototypes of our models. German class 44 had been by far the most produced 3 (or more)-cylinder steam engine, worlwide -almost 2.000 locos. And they were among the most reliable and longest living engines, despite a bit of overengineering. A lot of them ran a steady 5.000 + miles per month in heavy freight service. Summed up to some 30 years of duty they ran more than 1 million miles each in revenue service - not so bad, I think. They outperformed any other European freight engine in drag freight service. Think about of half an UP class 9000! Excuse not necessary !

Nothing more to say regarding N&W classes Y6b and A - simply some of the best locomotives worldwide !

Steam on!
Asteamhead

[Glenn Brooks]

Asteamhead,

Iam actually quite curious. What were the key bits of engineering that enabled the German 44’s to achieve such greater longevity? Anything we could use to improve miniature train design??

Thanks much,
Glenn

BTW, second other’s comments on your superb loco build and the overall quality of the model locos in the video! Wonderful job! Real mastery... personally, I’d like to see your loco stay with a stainless (or nickel)finish!

[Asteamhead]

Hello Glenn,
There you had me! I had to make up my mind trying to give some answers

1) Those locomotives had been built over a very long time, starting in 1926 for DR. Production had been stopped as late as 1936 due to the great depression. Time was used to improve the construction, following standards and using standard parts as far as possible. Standards included precision milling and drilling to very close tolerances, which alowed switching parts during shopings with no afterwork .
This worked out very well, when production was handed over to foreighn manufacturers in France, Austria and other countries during end of WW 2.
Some of the engines produced in France 1942 /45 were the last to stay in service untill 1977. To be exact: The last steam engine to run in Western Germany was 44 903, built by French Cy. Batignolles back in 1943!
After WW 2 there had been a surplus of freight engines, which allowed to srap a lot of defective engines.
2) Continous improvements had been made over the years, mostly at qualified class repairs.
3) Personal always had been qualified at a high level - and were doing their jobs a bit proudly. Maybe a bit like with N&W or UP ? No hire and fire!
4) These locomotives were equipped with a generous boiler, which wasn't the case with several other types.
5) Due to 3-cylinders with seperate valve gears to each of them, class 44 delivered very high continous drawbar pull under any condition
A rigid frame in combination with a complete equilazing leverage adds a great deal
Thus no German 4-axle diesel or even conventional 4-axle electric locomotive could do the same in drag service on grades! The photo above showed such performance which began in the 1940s and lastet as late as 1973 . Maybe the single such case worldwide?
Electrification of most mainlines took place during the 50s and 60s. 6-axle electric locomotives were much more capable, of course.
6) The late start of development of mainline diesels in Germany as late as 1952 made this possible, of course. A class V 200 of 1956 with two high revolution engines and hydraulik transmission delivered just 1.500 hp at the drawbar and never could deliver that 43.000 + continous drawbar pull of the old and true class 44 . A single GM GP 9 could!
At that time a class 44 cost a flat 100.000 $ while that V 200 cost about 350.000$ . Shoping costs were nearly the same, then !
7) DB and former DR were Standard RRs with locomotives built in serial production. Think of Pennsylvania RR and it's classes M1 or I1, please.
Or later of the GP 9 or the superb SD 40-2
Some engines got HT-1 Stokers which worked out fine. Due to increasing costs of locomotive coal versus fuel in the mid 50s, several locomotives were converted into fuel burners. The equipment was similar to that of Southern Pacific and worked out fine until end of steam.
For class 44 was a solid and well constructed engine such changes to increase drawbar power did no harm to the engines.
A single fireman could feed the locomotive grate with about 2 t of coal an hour, which translated into 1750 hp at the drawbar.
I was lucky to enjoy such a performanc on the platform back in 1970

To answer your question, what could be useful to the construction of our models, look at points 2),4), 5), please.
A good and continous drawbar pull in relation to the total friction weight (0.20 to 0.25) at any condition seems to be most important!

That's my story about class 44 (and why I decided to built one in scale 1 in 10)

Asteamhead