Prussian T 12
Encyclopedia
The Prussian Class T 12 is an early, German, passenger train, tank locomotive
Tank locomotive
A tank locomotive or tank engine is a steam locomotive that carries its water in one or more on-board water tanks, instead of pulling it behind it in a tender. It will most likely also have some kind of bunker to hold the fuel. There are several different types of tank locomotive dependent upon...

 built for the Prussian state railways
Prussian state railways
The term Prussian state railways encompasses those railway organisations that were owned or managed by the State of Prussia...

 in large numbers. These locomotives were superheated variants of the T 11
Prussian T 11
- History :The Prussian Class T 11 were passenger tank locomotives in the service of the Prussian state railways that were intended for duties on the Berlin Stadtbahn. To that end 470 engines of this type were procured between 1903 and 1910. Like the superheated locomotive, the Prussian T 12, the T...

.

History

Although the T 12 first appeared as early as 1902 in an experimental guise, series production did not start until 1905. Besides the Prussian state railways, the engine was also procured by the Imperial Railways in Alsace-Lorraine
Imperial Railways in Alsace-Lorraine
The Imperial Railways in Alsace-Lorraine were the first railways owned by the German Empire.They emerged in 1871, after France had ceded the region of Alsace-Lorraine to the German Empire under the terms of the peace treaty following the Franco-Prussian War...

 (25 units), the Lübeck-Büchen Railway and the Halberstadt-Blankenburg Railway.

The main sphere of operations for the T 12 was the Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

 area, where it worked the city network, ring railway and suburban lines as a predecessor of electric S-Bahn traction. The engines had to be capable of rapid acceleration when in charge of compartment coach
Compartment coach
A compartment coach is a railway passenger coach divided into separate areas or compartments, with no means of moving between each compartment.- English origins :...

 trains in order to achieve acceptable journey times, due to the short distances between stations on some routes. The T 12 was therefore a very powerful locomotive with strong acceleration in both running directions. In 1921 a follow-on order of 40 locomotives was built by Borsig, because the fleet was not large enough. After the electrification of much of the S-Bahn network between 1924 and 1929 the locomotives were switched to normal passenger and goods train services and shunting.

In 1925 the Reichsbahn
Deutsche Reichsbahn
Deutsche Reichsbahn was the name of the following two companies:* Deutsche Reichsbahn, the German Imperial Railways during the Weimar Republic, the Third Reich and the immediate aftermath...

 took over 899 examples as their DRG Class 74.4-13 with numbers 74 401 to 74 1300 (74 544 was not used). The locomotive, for which this number was intended, had to be given to the Belgian state railways. Locomotives 74 784–786 and 74 1254 originally came from the Imperial Railways in Alsace-Lorraine. Ten engines, with numbers 74 1301 to 74 1310, were taken over from the Saarbahn.

Another eleven units, with numbers 74 1311 to 74 1321 were acquired from the Lübeck-Büchen Railway in 1938, where they had had running numbers 132 to 142. Five of them were streamlined like the 1'B1' streamliners
LBE Nos. 1 to 3
Locomotive numbers 1 to 3 on the Lübeck-Büchen railway in Germany were streamlined tank locomotives. The locomotives had a 2-4-2 wheel arrangement, a two-cylinder, superheated engine and were capable of push-pull operations...

. The streamlining was removed again in 1948; these engines could still be recognised from their tapered coal tanks.

Locomotive 74 498 remained in Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

 after the end of the Second World War where the ÖBB classed it as 674.498 in its tractive fleet. The engine was later employed in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

, was derailed on 3 July 1954 and then scrapped (official retirement date: 23 May 1955).

In 1950 the East German Deutsche Reichsbahn took over four of the locomotives bought by the Halberstadt-Blankenburg Railway, numbering them 74 6776–6779. The ex-Prussian Class T 12's were retired by both West and East German administrations by 1968.

Number 74 1192 (see photograph) has been preserved, along with no. 74 1230 and one of the PKP Class OKi2 in Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

(formerly 74 1234),

Sources

  • Klaus-Detlev Holzborn: Unsere Dampflokomotiven. Band II. Tenderlokomotiven BR 60 - 96. Albis Verlag Düsseldorf, 1967
  • Weisbrod, Bäzold, Obermayer: Das große Typenbuch deutscher Dampflokomotiven. Transpress Verlag ISBN 3-344-70751-5
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