Did any american troops " capture ' german locomotives and brought them here to be used ??? I am sure the boilers were good except those with 50 caliber holes thru them. Maybe Bachmann can offer a 2-10-2T tank loco ?
I don't think so. OTOH, Anzio Annie is on display at Aberdeen Proving Grounds, Maryland.
Gene
Now I understand your board name. Ja, ich verstehe.
Gene
Did any american troops " capture ' german locomotives and bring them to the U.S.? No, We took U.S. locomotive over there. Now there are two or three german locomotives running in the U.S.. They are at Silver Dollar City.
Father was an engineer at Focke-Wulf. I know there is a working henshell 2-10-2 with tender near sao paulo, brazil and the brazilian were allies with the US in their efforts to salvage war booty. In Seattle there are cranes being used that were moved from Bremen. So it looks like i have to go to germany to see one of these teaketles ( or Brazil ) ?
Is your real name Kurt Tank Jr? Your handle is a pretty high flying variant of the FW-190.
Many German war locomotives went to eastern bloc nations and some to Turkey where they ran for many years finally being retired in the 70s. To the best of my knowledge, used Kreigsloks were given in reparations. They were still active in Poland who copied them. Many were built in the Czhech works of Skoda, etc. I would guess that the Henschel locomotives in Brazil were shipped as new builds as the Brazilians bought many pieces of railroad equipment from Germany as well as the US. The design is probably the same 2-10-0 that was made for the military as it was not only a sound design but easy to maintain as steam locomotives go.
What does this subject has to do with "HO"? ???
Quote from: Dr EMD on December 10, 2007, 09:19:32 PM
What does this subject has to do with "HO"? ???
not sure... I'm still stuck on the third post
History!
things to talk about in between breakdowns.
My dad was on a USN transport and he remembered American locomotives being put on his ship. When they didn't fit in the hold they were lashed on to the deck - in pairs, one on each side. He remembered them being cocooned and that they didn't have cabs attached. I assume they got european style cabs when they arrived in France. We supplied locomotives in North Africa and to the USSR via Iran.
There couldn't be too many running German locomotives left at the end of the war. The LI P-51 fighter ace who just recently died - I believe his name was Gabreski - said at a seminar once that they had actually run of targets by April, 1945.
As for pertinence to HO, I've seen HO diaramas portraying German military trains. Whatever makes you happy......
I'm pretty sure we never brought any locos back from Europe after the war. We had plenty ourselves. Whatever was left would have been needed by the countries ravaged by the war to get back on their feet. We left a lot of locos over there, in fact. Wasn't really worth bringing them back and, again, they were needed over there. Some War Department locos didn't make it over, and were sold off in this country. I believe the Reader RR had one which I believe is still running on some tourist line. There were several at the Transporation Corps training facility at Fort Eustis, VA that were kept in service into the 1960's because the soldiers might still have to work with steam in other parts of the world (China, India, etc.). One of those was, last I looked, in dead storage out at Cass, WV.
I think the Nut is right - Reader had one. There is one stuffed and mounted in the TC museum at Ft. Eustis, VA - supposedly with the bottom of the coal bunker missing because they put it to bed with coal in the bunker and rain and coal, given time, make various acids - like sulphuric. The Tennessee Valley (?) RR in Chattanooga has (had) one.
They ran on the LH&B until the mid 60s at least - as long as Europe still had steam locomotives. Eustis had two or three of them.
Gene
The 2-8-0 that is used on the Great Smokey Mountain Railway in NC is from the Reader Railroad and it was originally an Army Transportation Corps engine.
I agree about bringing German engines to America. We were too busy bringing over airplanes and V-2 parts to worry about German steamers. Besides, the railroads would begin to dieselize and what would they do with obsolete (and probably worn out) German engines?
And,
It would have made no economic sense to bring locos over here for which we had no parts, no experiance with the particular designs, maybe no drawings and they would have had to be modified to our coupler system and safety appliances. For all that expense you could just build new ones - which to some extent we did, while not many, some new steam locos where built after WWII.
And, diesels where well on their way to taking over by then. In only ten years from the end of the war, steam was all but gone.
One more point, while German locos are fine pieces of machinery, how well suited to our railroads they might have been is another question. As as been explained/discussed on here before, steam locos are, for the most part, designed for specific jobs/conditions. There is little about the European rail system, then or now, that is similar to our system here in North America.
Sheldon
To add to Sheldon's comments, European equipment is smaller and lighter than American. The Russian Decapod was a large locomotive by European standards, but at best a small mid-sized one by ours. My wine train has a probably fake European wine tank car loaded on a 40' American flat car. The tank car is no more than 25 feet long.
Gene
I just bought a 2-6-6-2 Articulated and I am surprised at how much smaller it is when on the track next to the 2-10-0 decapod ( Susquehanna ). Friction force formulas are entirely dependent on weight, the more you weigh, the more traction you can transfer to the rails.