Prussian state railways
Encyclopedia
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
: Preußische Staatseisenbahnen) encompasses those railway organisations that were owned or managed by the State of Prussia
Prussia
Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...
. The words "state railways" are not capitalized because Prussia did not have an independent railway administration; rather the individual railway organisations were under the control of the Ministry for Trade and Commerce or its later offshoot, the Ministry for Public Works.
The official name of the Prussian rail network was Königlich Preußische Staatseisenbahnen (K.P.St.E., "Royal Prussian State Railways") until 1896, Königlich Preußische und Großherzoglich Hessische Staatseisenbahn (K.P.u.G.H.St.E., "Royal Prussian and Grand-Ducal Hessian State Railways") until the end of the First World War, and Preußische Staatsbahn (P.St.B., "Prussian State Railway") until its nationalization in 1920. A common mistake is the use of the abbreviation K.P.E.V. in supposed reference to a mythical "Royal Prussian Railway Administration
Royal Prussian Railway Administration
The title Royal Prussian Railway Administration or KPEV is often mistakenly used to describe the Prussian state railways ....
" (Königlich Preußischen Eisenbahn-Verwaltung). No such entity ever existed and Prussian railway cars acquired the K.P.E.V. logo apparently through an error originating in their Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
division.
Overview
The first Prussian railways were private concerns, beginning with the Berlin-Potsdam Railway in 1838 and which was therefore known as the "Stammbahn" (roughly translates as 'original line'). The state of Prussia first financed railways around 1850. These were the Royal Westphalian Railway CompanyRoyal Westphalian Railway Company
The Royal Westphalian Railway , was a German rail company established in 1848 with funding from the Prussian government, which later became part of the Prussian State Railways...
(Königlich-Westfälische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft) and the Prussian Eastern Railway or Prussian Ostbahn (Preußische Ostbahn). In 1875 they funded two more important new railways: the Prussian Northern Railway or Prussian Nordbahn (Preußsische Nordbahn) and the Marienfelde–Zossen–Jüterbog Military Railway.
After the Austro-Prussian War
Austro-Prussian War
The Austro-Prussian War was a war fought in 1866 between the German Confederation under the leadership of the Austrian Empire and its German allies on one side and the Kingdom of Prussia with its German allies and Italy on the...
of 1866, various private, commercially-oriented lines were brought under Prussian control through annexation, outright purchase or the provision of financial support depending on their situation. It was the in Between 1880 and 1889 most of the private lines were nationalised thanks to Prussia's strong financial situation making it the biggest company in Germany in 1907.
Prussia nationalized its railways in 1880 in an effort both to lower rates on freight service and to equalize those rates among shippers. Instead of lowering rates as far as possible, the government ran the railways as a profitmaking endeavor, and the railway profits became a major source of revenue for the state. The nationalization of the railways slowed the economic development of Prussia because the state favored the relatively backward agricultural areas in its rail roadbuilding. Moreover, the railway surpluses substituted for the development of an adequate tax system.
The individual railways acted as if they were independent operations and developed their own rolling stock. The extent of this independence is illustrated in an 1893 street plan of Berlin that shows the Silesian station (Berlin's departure point for the Ostbahn since 1882) and a few hundred yards apart from each other the main workshops for the Royal Berlin Division and the Royal Bromberg Division of the Ostbahn.
At the end of the First World War the network of the state-owned Prussian railways had a total length of almost 37,500 kilometres. The history of the Prussian state railways ended in 1920 with the nationalization and absorption of the various German state railways into the Imperial Railways (Reichseisenbahn), later the Deutsche 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...
.
Origin and Classification
For the most part the locomotives listed in the Prussian classfication system were not built under state direction, but independently procured by the individual railway companies. In many cases they were only brought into the Prussian railway inventory when the ownership of their respective railway organisations was later transferred to the state authorities.This explains their unusually high numbers with about 80 classes and variants, the overwhelming majority of which were constructed between 1877 and 1895. In 1889, Prussian standards were laid down in order that the number of classes could be reduced in the future.
The division of locomotives into class variants and different designs showed a clear predominance of tank engines. These were procured in widely varying, sometimes, large quantities totally some 9000 in all. That reflects a structure that largely consisted of unconnected branch lines (Kleinbahnen) for which no long-range locomotives - i.e. tender locomotives - had to be built. In terms of pure numbers, goods locomotives dominated, representing some 12,000 out of a total fleet of around 30,000 in Prussian state ownership.
Classification System
According to Hütter and Pieper the original classfication system for Prussian locomotives was largely drawn from the Prussian Eastern Railway (Prussian Ostbahn). Under that, the locomotives only had running numbers without class designation. From the locomotive's running number however its purpose could be deduced based on the following allocation of numbers:| Type | Numbering |
|---|---|
| Uncoupled Locomotives | 1 - 99 |
| Coupled Express and Passenger Train Locomotives | 100 - 499 |
| Double-coupled Goods Train Locomotives | 500 - 799 |
| Triple-coupled Goods Train Locomotives | 800 - 1399 |
| Double-coupled Tank Locomotives | 1400–1699 |
| Triple-coupled Tank Locomotives | 1700–1899 |
| Special Classes | 1900–1999 |
Because each railway division numbered its locomotives independently using this scheme, there was a locomotive number 120, for example, almost everywhere. As a result the name of the division was used with the number in order to distinguish them. The full designation for a locomotive with the number '120' went something like "Hannover 120" or "Cöln linksrheinisch 120". However it soon became evident that the numbering structure was too limited, because over time more locomotives entered service than its sequence of numbers had allowed for. In addition, new types of engine were produced, for which no numbers had been allocated, for example four-couplers. This resulted in locomotives being allocated unused numbers outside of their designated sequence.
This all led to the introduction of a new system in 1906. For express train, passenger train, goods train and tank locomotives the group letters 'S', 'P', 'G' and 'T' were used together with a type number that specified the main classes.
So locomotives of average power were allotted to the '3' classes: S3, P3, G3 and T3. Less powerful engines were given lower numbers and more powerful engines higher numbers. In addition, superheated steam engines were to be given an even class number, whereas wet steam engines of a similar type were to be given the number below. Later further sub-divisions were introduced that had higher numbers. Furthermore within the classes, running numbers were arranged in clear groups. Nevertheless the complete designation still included the division name and the running number as well as the class letters and numbers.
Classes 1 to 3 mainly comprised the old private railway locomotives, left in the order of the individual divisions. In the lower-numbered classes there were the most varied types of engine sometimes with different wheelbases. So one could not really speak of a standard classification to begin with. It was expected that over time the older locomotives would be paid off so that only the newer standard locomotives would remain, classified in a logical and orderly fashion.
The Prussian state railways were, like all other German state railways, subordinated to the authority of the German Empire
German Empire
The German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German...
after 1920 and then went into the Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft
Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft
The Deutsche Reichsbahn – was the name of the German national railway created from the railways of the individual states of the German Empire following the end of World War I....
in 1924. Quite a few of the locomotives formerly ordered by Prussia continued to be supplied until 1926 and were still defined as Prussian locomotive classes in the Reichsbahn fleet until they were eventually renumbered.
See also
- Kingdom of PrussiaKingdom of PrussiaThe Kingdom of Prussia was a German kingdom from 1701 to 1918. Until the defeat of Germany in World War I, it comprised almost two-thirds of the area of the German Empire...
- List of Prussian locomotives and railbuses
- History of the railway in Germany
Literature
- Wolfgang Klee: Preußische Eisenbahngeschichte, Kohlhammer Edition Eisenbahn, Stuttgart u.a. 1982, ISBN 3-17-007466-0
- Elfriede Rehbein: Zum Charakter der preußischen Eisenbahnpolitik von ihren Anfängen bis zum Jahre 1879, Dresden 1953
- Herman Klomfass: Die Entwicklung des Staatsbahnsystems in Preußen: Ein Beitrag zur Eisenbahngeschichte Deutschlands, Hamburg : Schröder & Jeve, 1901
- Ingo Hütter, Oskar Pieper: Gesamtverzeichnis deutscher Lokomotiven
- Teil1: Preußen bis 1906 (Band 1) Verlag Schweers+Wall GmbH, Aachen, 1992, ISBN 3-921679-73-7
- Teil1: Preußen bis 1906 (Band 2) Verlag Schweers+Wall GmbH, Aachen, 1996, ISBN 3-921679-74-5
- Kgl. Pr. Minister d. öffentl. Arbeiten (Hsg): Berlin und seine Eisenbahnen 1846–1896, Springer-Verlag Berlin 1896, Reprint ISBN 3-88245-106-8
External links
The following German language links are relevant:- v. Röll, Encyclopedia of Railways, 1912–1923
- Bahnhofsmuseum.de – Royal Prussian Railway Uniform Group from MetelenMetelenMetelen is a municipality in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located on the river Vechte in the district of Steinfurt.-History:The town history dates back to 889, when it was first mentioned in an official document...
- List of the first railways in North Rhine Westfalia to 1930