Second World War steam locos

Hi guys

I am sure some one has already asked this. But where there any 2ft gauge steam locos build for military use during the second world war? If so did any survive?

 

not going to say "no" but WW2 was a totally different war to WW1 with different needs and a lot more road transport available. Quite possibly there might have been some built, but very few compared to WW1

 

Didn't the Germans build some 60cm g. 0-4-0's for the Todt organisation (if that's how you spell it) which built coastal defences such as in Jersey? Ray.

 

The Transport Museum at Pithiviers has an ex-Tramways de Pithiviers a Toury 0-8-0 built for the German army in, I think, 1944. It is the same type as "Sir Drefaldwyn" on the Welshpool & Llanfair, but 600mm gauge instead of 760mm. It may have been converted to 600mm but I am not sure. I had a conducted tour of the workshop a few years ago and was told that it is quite unstable on the TPT track as the water tends to slosh around in the side tanks.

 

Whilst on holiday there some years back I bought a book about the railways of the Channel Island which I think was produced by Oakwood Press, and it covered the history from the 19th Century to the 'present day' (now the last century!).... Definitely there was a lot of Narrow Gauge lines on Jersey rebuilt after the German's occupied the country, including some in areas of the country which had not been rail served during the days of the passenger railways. The underground hospital also had a rail system inside it, plus an bunker system built within a preexisting railway tunnel. Definitely in the book there was some images of the occupation railway system in operation (although I would guess the ability to take pictures of it would have been somewhat restricted) and that included steam locomotives functioning. As far as I am aware after the war it was all ripped up like it predcessors.

 

This wikipedia article contains several mentions of railway systems be reconstructed by the Germans during the second world war in the channel Islands. I am sure a google search would reveal more about it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_the_Channel_Islands

 

And here's an image of a loco...

http://www.theislandwiki.org/index.php/File:Todt-loco-Weighbridge.jpg
Two more here...
http://www.theislandwiki.org/index.php/File:German_railway_1945.jpg

a few others of the lines
http://www.theislandwiki.org/index.php/File:GermanSandTrains.jpg
http://www.theislandwiki.org/index.php/File:Occ-HavrePasTrack.jpg
http://www.theislandwiki.org/index.php/File:OTRailwayStJohnMainRd.jpg
http://www.theislandwiki.org/index.php/File:Todt-rail-lines.jpg
http://www.theislandwiki.org/index.php/File:English-harbour.jpg
http://www.theislandwiki.org/index.php/File:Maj-Heider-Und-Hosp.jpg
http://www.theislandwiki.org/index.php/File:Weighbridge-JEP.jpg
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y89/malasadabooks/Apr-May 2012/July 2012/HPIM73561024x757.jpg
I'm guessing that if railways were used in the construction of defences in the Channel Islands, there would probably be other examples elsewhere. My guess would be that if you were going to find any traces of German Military Railway Hardware the best place to start looking would be somewhere in Russia, seeing as a lot went East as the Red Army advanced.....

 

German WW2 locos are listed here: www.heeresfeldbahn.de/lokomotiven/deutschland/index.php

 

Some notes on the history of Sir Drefaldwyn and other HF160D / KDL11 locomotives: -

The story had begun in 1939 when the Heereswaffenamt 5 (Army Weapons Office No.5 - Engineering Equipment) invited several Austrian and German firms to tender for a range of narrow gauge locomotives to equip the Heeresfeldbahnen (Army Field Railways) as successors to the well known Brigadeloks of WW1. The design specification required the locomotives to be regaugable, presumably from 600mm to 760mm.

The Borsig entry, to be known as HF-NR191, was a non-superheated 0-10-0 tender locomotive with Klien-Lindner axles. A prototype was completed on the 10th August 1939 as works number 14806 and classified as type HF210E. This locomotive however was to remain unique as the winning bidder was BMAG (Berliner Maschinenbau-Actien-Gesellschaft vormals L. Schwartzkopff) who are perhaps best known for their Prussian P8s and the prototype Harz 2-10-2T 99222.

The Heeresfeldbahn did not fit into the German’s Blitzkrieg philosophy of high speed mechanised invasion so BMAGs draft designs were held until 1942 when the faltering invasion of Russia called for different tactics. From the drawings held at Llanfair, BMAG (which that was by now centrally controlled by Albert Speers’ Gemeinschaft Grossdeutscher Lokomotivhersteller - GGL) recommenced detailed design work during late 1942 and throughout 1943 of the Kriegsdampflokomotive 11 (KDL 11)0-8-0 tender locomotive. The design was tailered for the Eastern front complete with fully enclosed cabs with substantial amount of firebox projecting into the footplate area and very large bogie tenders, that were slightly longer than the overall length than the loco itself. It was a simple, rugged, light axle load design capable of negociating tight curves and safely travel over poor quality track. Instead of the Klien-Lindner arrangement of the Brigadeloks, the GGL favoured a hybrid of the Beugniot-Hebel lever system combined with certain features originating in the Gölsdorf axle system.The axleboxes of the first and second axles are connected by swing arm (Beugniot lever) pivoted from a frame spacer. This allows the axleboxes to float sideways within their hornguides by 30mm. The sideplay is taken up by the use of long crankpins and in addition the third axle is flangeless. A similar arrangement was also used by GGL on their standard gauge class 52 Kriegslok 2-10-0s.

Due to capacity issues at BMAG, the GGL realocated the build to the occupied Société Franco-Belge de Matériel de Chemins de Fer, an early multinational company who built locomotives at Raismes in Northern France and Croyère in the Hainault district of Belgium. Ultimately, only two KDL11s were actually sent to the Eastern Front with bogie tenders and were later captured in Poland and Finland. The remainder were delivered tenderless in a livery of light grey. The Heeresfeldbahn re-classified the locomotives as HF160D and identified them by adding a “HF” suffix to their Franco-Belge works numbers.

Amongst the engineering records for the W&LLR locomotive fleet there is an old string tied folder titled ‘Steiermärkische Landesbahnen Lok 699.01’. It contains a collection of blue prints, sketches and technical data covering the life of Sir Drefaldwn, but the most eye-catching was the boiler documentation since it is covered in Nazi eagle and swastika approval stamps. Despite the the war the German rules for commissioning pressure vessels were followed up in detail, so these pages record the detailed inspection and audit of Franco Belge’s Raismesworks by the TÜV, the independent German organisation that validates the safety of such products. Franco Belge of Raismesmade their submission on the 9th March 1944, the TÜVgranted their approval for the boiler belonging to works number 2855 on Tuesday 18th April 1944 to be steamed. This is exactly 7 weeks before the D-Day landings.

It is very likely that HF2855 (Sir Drefaldwyn) never turned a wheel in anger for the Third Reich. To avoid capture by the advancing Allied forces the Heereswaffenamt 5 transferred some locomotives (set up for 750mm) for storage at their test laboratory at Mittersill, in Austria, together with equipment from another site at Rehagen Klausdorf in Eastern Germany. The Mittersill site began in 1939 as the German Army’s aerial ropeway training school located on the banks of the River Salzack with a rail link via a spur and river bridge to the 760mm gauge Pinzagauer Lokalbahn line from Zell-am-See to Krimml. The area was liberated by the 42nd Infantry Division of the XV Corps,US Army on the 8th May 1945.
Now within the occupied US Zone of Austria, the captured locomotives were found employment despite having to be re-gauged from 750mm to the normal Austrian gauge of 760mm. Of the eight HF160D locomotives in Austria four were equipped with small four wheel tenders (built by Jung or Henschel for smaller HF110C locos) and the remaining four were rebuilt as tank engines: -

Franco Belge No. Year New Identity Type
2817 1944 ÖBB 699.101 Tank
2818 1944 ÖBB 699.01 Tender
2819 1944 ÖBB 699.102 Tank
2821 1944 ÖBB 699.103 Tank
2822 1944 ÖBB 699.02 Tender
2855 1944 SKGLB 19 Tender
2856 1944 ÖBB 699.03 Tender
2857 1944 ÖBB 699.104 Tank

On the 6th January 1946 2855 was loaned to the Salzkammergut Lokalbahn (SKGLB) and put into use in the August of that year following re-gauging as their No. 19. It was bought by the SKGLB on the 1st April 1950, but then resold to the Steiermärkische Landesbahnen (StLB) in July 1955. Some sources suggest that the locomotive was withdrawn by the SKGLB as early as 1952 and was sold without her tender. Whatever the reason, the StLB rebuilt the locomotive between 1955-57 as a tank engine and 699.01 as she was now known (inheriting the identity of withdrawn 2818 that was then in long term store at Ober Grafendorf on the Mariazellerbahn), worked on the StLB’s 77km Weiz-Birkfeld-Ratten line, known as the Feistritztalbahn. Despite having her austerity steel firebox replaced with a new copper one as late as 1961 she was withdrawn in November 1965. The Feistritztalbahn had seen a sharp downturn in traffic with the loss of coal traffic from the Ratten mines and no longer had a need for a freight locomotive limited to 18mph. The remaining freight were operated as mixed trains and 699.01s inability to run at the 25mph required by their passenger timetable was to be the deciding factor. Some trials are believed to have been held on the StLB’s Murtalbahn line, but without success. She was to remain stored at Weiz until discovered by Ralph Russell and Graham Smart on behalf of the W&LLR in 1969. Of the 24 locomotives of this type known to have been built, 9 still survive in 600mm, 760mm and standard gauge format, with the four French survivors listed being presumably captured by the Allies in France.

Franco Belge No. Year Country Identity Railway Comments
2817 1944 Austria ÖBB 699.101 Gurktalbahn Tank Engine
2818 1944 Austria ÖBB 699.01 Taurachbahn (Club 760) Tender Engine
2821 1944 Austria ÖBB 699.103 Steyrtalbahn Tank Engine
2822 1944 Germany ÖBB 699.02 Deutsches Technikmuseum, Berlin Tender Engine
2836 1945 FranceTPT 4.14 / CFCD 10 APPEVA (Froissy – Dompierre)Tender Engine
2843 1945 FranceTPT 4.12 Pithiviers Tank Engine
2844 1945 FranceTPT 4.13 ARVO, Bligny sur Ouches Tank Engine
2845 1945 France? Le Petit Train de Vallee de la Doller Tank Engine (regauged to standard gauge)
2855 1944 Wales SKGLB 699.01 / W&LLR 10 W&LLR Tank Engine

As a postscript there remains a mystery. In the 1980s 699.01 frames were stripped down to disable the articulation and convert the locomotive to a rigid 0-8-0. This was done as an attempt to improve her tendency for longitudinal oscillation and to reduce maintenance as the curvature of the W&L did not warrant this feature. Upon the removal of the horn guides, for what is believed to be the first time in her life, cardboard shims were discovered. To this day it remains a matter of debate whether this was an impressive piece of French engineering ingenuity or a rather poor sabotage attempt!

The solitary Borsig loco (mentioned earlier) was to have an interesting existance, occupation from 1939 to1942 is not known, but in October 1942 the locomotive was transferred to the Eastern Front with the Eisenbahnbaubataillon 512 (512th Railway Building Batallion). The 512th were trying to build a 600mm line from Tobolka to Demjansk , in a region south of Leningrad (St. Petersburg) where there was heavy fighting against the Red Army. It is presumed the locomotive at that time was set up for 600mm gauge. In early 1942 the Soviet Union had managed to encircle 900,000 German troops within the “Demjansk Pocket” but the Germans were able to briefly break the siege. The terrain was an unpleasant wooded swamp with a heavy snow covering and the Germans tried to consolidate their position by building the railway. Eventually the Red Army liberated the region and the retreating Germans took the locomotive back with them in March 1943. During 1943 and 1944 the Borsig worked at Rehagen Klausdorf in Eastern Germany before being transferred in January/February 1945 to the Heeresfeldbahnen depot at Mittersill, where it joined the BMAG designed/Franco Belge built KD11 0-8-0 tender locos. The US Army captured the locomotives at the end of the hostilities (the Salzburg State became part of the US controlled zone) and in 1946 regauged them to 760mm. The Borsig was loaned to the Salzkammergut Lokalbahn (SKGLB) where the it became their No.22 Upon the sad closure of the SKGLB in October 1957, the Zillertalbahn took the opportunity to purchase the Borsig which became the Tyrolean line’s No.4 where she would be confined to construction trains associated with the building of a new hydro dam, being unable to meet the required 45km/h line speed for passenger traffic.“Castle Caereinion” With the completion of the dam in 1971, “Castle Caereinion” was withdrawn from traffic until 1974 when the ZB overhauled and leased it to the Eurovapeur organisation to operate the Bregenzerwaldbahn until 1980. It returned to the Zillertalbahn and was renamed “Aquarius C” on the 5th October 1982. In 1983 the locomotive as transferred to the OBB Knittelfeld workshops for a boiler examination, which was eventually completed at the Teutoburger Wald-Einsenbahn workshops. From 1986 to 1988 “Aquarius C” operated on the Jagstalbahn railway in Germany until boiler damage resulted in it became a static exhibit at the German Technical Museum in Berlin until 1995, when it was restored in the Deutsche Bahn workshop at Görlitz-Schlauroth for the Rügen Kleinbahn (on the Baltic island of Rügen). “Aquarius C” has remained there ever since.
The W&L is now in the possession of an original name plate, a presentation plate and a works plate for this locomotive.