Deutsche Reichsbahn 4-6-4 Locomotives in Germany

Class BR 05 - rebuilt (Locobase 5079)

Data from [] umbau.htm (June 2002)

In 1950 the Bundesbahn gathered the three 4-6-4s that had been built as streamliners in the 1930s and rebuilt them all to the same standard. The 03 was not greatly changed from its 1944 makeover, but the 01-02 received a brand new boiler with more tubes than the original (+ 9 "ankerrohre", tubes of similar diameter but thicker), more and smaller-diameter flues, and a boiler almost 5 feet shorter. As rebuilt, these were much more satisfactory engines and they worked the fastest expresses until their retirements in the 1960s.

Class BR 05 1934 (Locobase 2142)

Data from [] (June 2002). See also data from " Baureihe 05 (1934)

Lokomotiven der Baureihe 05 (1934) (Fett: mit Bild)," on Alfred Gieseler's website at [], last accessed 8 June 2017.

Wrapped in a streamlined casing, 002 broke the speed record for steam in 1936, reaching 124.5 mph (and indicating 3,409 hp). Johannes Wittmann, in a 3 August 1999 reply to a query on the Interactive/Germany/QsandAs website, comments about the 05's boiler: "It was a poor steamer due to its Wagnerian (Wagner the locomotive designer) construction principles: no combustion chamber, long barrel, bad draught."

Criticism of the admittedly long barrel, a long-time feature of Wagner's designs, rose after he left the scene. Locobase notes that the problem may have lain as much with the large tube and flue diameters, which resulted in a perfect tube diameter/length ratio of 100 (something of an article of faith among many designers). Could gas flow through such large cylinders set up an insulating dead zone against the tube walls, thus impeding draft and reducing heat transfer?

Only two were built, which ran between Hamburg and Berlin until World War II broke out. They were joined by a third locomotive

They were rebuilt in 1950 with new boilers almost five feet shorter and no streamlining.

Class BR 05.003 (Locobase 5078)

Data from Alfred Gieseler's website at [] . See also [] (June 2002). Works number was 15555 in 1936.

This variant on the high-speed streamliners built in the late 1930s ran cab-first under a long shroud and used a firebox that burned pulverized coal. From the section drawing presented on the above website, it seems that the coal was crushed in the tender (or even loaded in that state), then blown along piping past the reversed engine layout to the firebox and sprayed over the grate.

One can only imagine the complications this system offered (oil would have been a much better choice), and the locomotive was rebuilt to a regular configuration in 1944-45. Later all three were rebuilt to a common standard using the boiler dimensions from this engine. See 5079

Class BR 61.001 (Locobase 4321)

Data from [] (June 2002) and the US Military Railway Service Equipment Data Book for German Locomotives supplied by Allen Stanley from his extensive Rail Data Exchange in March 2004. Works number was 22500 in 1935.

John Oxlade's [] says this design was developed as a streamliner to pull the Henschel-Wegmann train set between Berlin and Dresden. It was evaluated with the 61.002 (Locobase 20204). 61.001 put up a run of 176 km in 102 minutes (64 mph). Christian Lindecke ([], 23 May 2004) adds that the 4-6-4T layout provided a jerky ride and needed more bunker and water capacity. The 002 was produced to implement some changes.

001 retained the streamline casing, which covered all protuberances from buffer beam to buffer beam, until after World War II (The MRS's locomotive sketch shows casing's outline.) The shroud was removed and the locomotive operated as a conventional schnellzuglok until boiler damage forced it out of service in 1952.

Class BR 62 (Locobase 4323)

Data from [] (June 2002)

John Oxlade's [] says this was an Einheitslok. It's notable for its sharing the boiler and firebox of the Class 85 2-10-2T. Unfortunately, the economic depression that began in the late 1920s limited production to 15.

Johannes Wittmann, responding to a series of posts about this class on [] (8 June 2001) says the BR 62 design was a tank engine version of a "super P8" 4-6-0 that would have been designated BR 20 had it been produced. Calling it "probably R P Wagner's best design, a powerful and straightforward ..." locomotive, Wittmann says that these engines could pull 625 tons of passenger train on the level at 100 /km/h (62 mph).

It was a short-haul design that sat idle for several years after the first two were delivered. Wittmann ascribed the short production run to the inability of the Deutsche Reichsbahn to proceed with its plan to upgrade the rail network to a 20-metric ton axle loading. In addition to the political and economic chaos that delayed the improvements, Wittmann contends, there were so many ex-Prussian locomotives of similar power available for a song that spending rapidly weakening marks on a new design was out of the question.

Ultimately the BR 62 did serve on trains in widely spread markets -- the Rhein-Ruhr area, near Meiningen in Thuringia and on the Baltic island of Rugen. All 15 locomotives survived World War II, the 7 Deutsche Bahn engines serving the Rhein-Ruhr and the 8 East Germans hauling trains as the suburban "Sputnik" that ran between Karlshorst and Werder.

They operated until 1955 in West Germany and perhaps as late as 1973 all over East Germany. (See the modelmaker's site [])