German Railways in the East

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GregSingh
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Re: German Railways in the East

#256

Post by GregSingh » 18 Sep 2014, 03:28

Well, volume 7 of Österreich-Ungarns Letzter Krieg is a good start. Has lots of maps and tables. Stan Hanna did excellent job translating it to English.

It seems that 1918's venture into Ukraine was a swift one...
Started on 28th of Feb. Kiev was taken on the 3rd of March, Odessa on the 13th; Cherson, Nikopol, Aleksandrowsk (Zaporozhye) in April; Taganrog and Sevastopol on the 1st of May; Kertch on the 2nd of May; Rostov on the 8th of May.

Bolsheviks resistance was minimal, but still impressive run. Perhaps Hitler was hoping for the same outcome in 1941...

All advances were made along major railroads. I edited original table to show only Ostfront.
Trains Jan-Jun 1918.jpg
Trains in Ukraine 1918

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Der Alte Fritz
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Re: German Railways in the East

#257

Post by Der Alte Fritz » 27 Sep 2014, 08:17

Thank you GregSingh that is an excellent source.

I found the original German edition available as a digitized version here: http://www.univie.ac.at/voeb/blog/?p=30010 and also here http://ee.valka.cz/pages/osobnost.php?id=759

The English translation is here: http://www.comroestudios.com/StanHanna/ which downloads as a pdf.

This goes quite well with a new book that I found in Hatchards "Ring of Steel" by Alexander Watson which is a trade book account of the Great War from Germany and Austro-Hungary's perspective.


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Re: German Railways in the East

#258

Post by GregSingh » 11 Oct 2014, 06:23

Ever wondered what railroad Class N,E,G meant in German documentation?
Here is a table from 1943 Ostbahn railroad manual showing axle load, etc. (subject already mentioned several times in earlier posts).
Tragfähigkeit der Strecken 1943.jpg
Carrying capacity

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Re: German Railways in the East

#259

Post by Der Alte Fritz » 16 Oct 2014, 09:14

I have translated this table as below:
Screenshot 2014-10-16 08.07.06.png
I think it illustrates quite neatly the great track strength used by the Germans throughout their network even the upgraded Polish lines, following the Otto programme. Is there any indication of which lines had which grades of track in Gedob area?

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Re: German Railways in the East

#260

Post by GregSingh » 26 Oct 2014, 04:43

Is there any indication of which lines had which grades of track in Gedob area?
Not on just one map or document, I've seen. Bits and pieces all over the place. But it seems all major trunks were of class N or E before 22.06.41.

And here what Hans Frank had to say about Jews using railroads...
Two noticeable things:
"Jews are prohibited from using rail travel until further notice."
"Shall be guilty of an offense are punishable by imprisonment and a fine of unlimited height or one of these penalties."
GG 26-Jan-40.jpg
GG 26-Jan-40

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Der Alte Fritz
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Re: German Railways in the East

#261

Post by Der Alte Fritz » 08 Nov 2014, 18:30

Nice thread about the German operations in the East during 1918
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=23191

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Re: German Railways in the East

#262

Post by Der Alte Fritz » 25 Nov 2014, 11:39

A very nice description of the structure of the DRB and Ostbahn and the GVD Osten including details of depots, repair shops, etc for each of the RVD in English:

http://antique-photos.com/en/unidatabas ... -1945.html

Much of the same information is also here but only in German and is not machine translatable:

http://www.bahnstatistik.de/index.htm

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Re: German Railways in the East

#263

Post by Der Alte Fritz » 08 Dec 2014, 14:43

Here is something that we should be able to establish - what the distance between water refuelling points and Bw on the German network. This should tell us how far a German engine ran in a day and how many times it needed to stop to take on water. British engines typically ran for 150km in between water stops (A1 Pacific Class) but carried enough coal to run about 500 km.

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Re: German Railways in the East

#264

Post by GregSingh » 15 Dec 2014, 08:06

Hello, German network (pre-1939 borders) was quite dense...so this way we won't have much luck as points were every couple of kilometers or so.

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Re: German Railways in the East

#265

Post by Der Alte Fritz » 17 Dec 2014, 11:41

Hi
I was thinking some of the outer areas such East Prussia and Austria as you are right for Central Germany. Or looking for an engine drivers account of locomotive operation. Or looking at the timetables for long distance trains as British accounts talk of the run from London to Scotland and how they had to take on water on a regular basis - express running at full pelt would use the maximum amount of water - hence the introduction of water scoops and troughs. etc.

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Re: German Railways in the East

#266

Post by GregSingh » 19 Dec 2014, 08:50

I had a look at the famous passenger express route Berlin-Memel. As of late spring 1941 train D9 seemed to have least stops.

Longest sections without stops:
Schneidemühl - Dirschau - 180.4 km in 151 min - av.speed 71.7 km/h
Küstrin - Schneidemühl - 161.0 km in 120 min - av.speed 80.5 km/h

Stop in Schneidemühl took only 8 min, how much extra water can you take in that time?

Fastest sections without stops:
Königsberg (Pr) - Insterburg - 89.1 km in 65 min - av.speed 82.2 km/h
Elbing - Königsberg (Pr) - 116.3 km in 85 min - av.speed 82.1 km/h

Locomotives BR 01 were mainly used and after 1939 some ex-Polish Pt 31's. Both were taking 10 tons of coal and 32 m3 of water each.

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Re: German Railways in the East

#267

Post by Der Alte Fritz » 19 Dec 2014, 09:20

There is this link to how much water a steam locomotive uses
http://www.smokstak.com/forum/showthread.php?t=25896

but their conclusion is that
Years ago they found that the average steam engine consumed 34.5 lbs. of water per horsepower per hour, so that's where that rating came from.
So Then a steam engine rated for 60hp would consume 60 x 34.5 = 2070 lbs of water and hour or 248.50 gallons if we used 8.33 lbs per gallon of water,
let me see if I have this correctly if the engine was operating at the full brake horse rating of 60hp I would need to bring the engineer 248.5 gallons every hour just to keep up with the consumption.

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Re: German Railways in the East

#268

Post by Der Alte Fritz » 19 Dec 2014, 09:46

So BR-01 with a rated hp of 2,210 would use 76,200 lb of water an hour (2210 x 34,5) or 9,100 gallons (/8.33) or 41 cu m of water per hour.
This calculation would only give 45 minutes of steaming if the BR-01 was carrying 32 cu m of water. But then the top speed was 120 km/h.

As regards refilling, British main stations had water towers which could deliver 1,000 gallons a minute or 4.5 cu m, so you could completely fill a BR-01 in 7 minutes.

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Re: German Railways in the East

#269

Post by recidivist » 20 Dec 2014, 08:49

HP is not a good parameter for measuring the performance of a steam locomotive because a locomotive travelling at eg. 30 mph will develop more hp than one travelling at 25 mph.

I kindly had this little tidbit from July 23rd passed on to me. It shows ('Lok stellt') which depots were responsible for providing the train engine for specified parts of the route travelled. It does not seem very different from how things were run back in Germany, but it probably tells us something that the Fahrplan is from July 1943, just on the eve of the Soviet counter-offensive at Kursk when Soviet partisans managed to disrupt German-run train lines simultaneously all over the occupied Ukraine. I think it was called Operation Kontsert.
uzd1.png
Fahrplananordnung
uzd1.png (409.23 KiB) Viewed 2122 times

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Re: German Railways in the East

#270

Post by Der Alte Fritz » 20 Dec 2014, 12:25

What a brilliant document.
Yes you are right it shows the Bw (Bahnbetriebswerk) (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bahnbetrie ... comotives)) for particular routes in the Ukraine.

Could you send me the original as I cannot read all of this image. PM me. Also what is the source? We could do a map for those sections of the line and mark on the Bw, etc.

The Bw for non railway visitors to the thread was an Operating Deport for a group of locomotives providing the motive power for a particular stretch of line. It contained an engine shed, turntable (or Y) a water point, coaling station and a reapir shop for minor repairs. Steam locomotives needed coal, water grease and sand loading (usually when they returned at night) and took around 3-5 hours in the morning to get ready for operation. Given the infrastructure needed to run these locomotives they usually hauled between Bw and then did a return run back to home. Roughly.

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