Austrian State 2-8-4 Locomotives in Austria

Class 114 / BR 12.1 (Locobase 4688)

Data from [], last accessed 13 September 2006. Works number was 5817 in 1929.

This was the prototype for the 214 class that followed within two years; it differed from the latter in using three cylinders instead of two. Wikipedia commented on the three-cylinder layout, citing the usual reasons of better balancing of the reciprocating masses and lower torque. Against those positives, working on the third cylinder, located as it was under the boiler and the smokebox, raised maintenance question even as the extra cylinder volume raised coal consumption by 9%.

It was absorbed by the Deutsche Reichsbahn after the Anschluss of 1938 and numbered BR 12 101. After World War II, a coal shortage led to the shops converting the engine to oil-firing in 1948, but not quite a year later, the third cylinder cracked and the 114 was scrapped.

Class 214 (Locobase 1061)

The Heusinger (basically an independently derived Walschaert variant) gear drove Lentz oscillating cam valves. H. le Fleming (Ransome-Wallis, 1959) calls attention to the connecting (main) rods, which at just under 14 feet were the "longest used in modern practice." Another feature was the Krauss-Helmholz truck which combined the leading pony truck and the first driving axle.

Powerful, efficient engines developed for Austrian service, for which 13 were built. Another 179 were built by the CFR's Resita factory in Romania. Tonnage rating was 550 tons of passenger train at 37 mph while scaling a 1.1% grade, developing 3,000 hp. Reder (1974) notes that 214.13 reached 97 mph on a test run, the highest speed ever attained by an Austrian locomotive.