But can we conclude that the GVD Osten was short on train locomotives on that basis? Would it not be more pertinent to conclude that the GVD-O was simply serving entirely different needs than the pre-war NKPS was? For one thing, I would expect that resources allocated to civilian passenger traffic would be very close to zero - there would of course be no imports whatsoever coming from further east, and as discussed upthread the Germans didn't really bother railing around food for the population in the occupied areas, either.Der Alte Fritz wrote:That is a useful illustration for engine production.
To put it into some sort of context here are the number of engines used in Russia for 1943 and 1944 and you can see the small numbers involved.
The German network was between 30,000 and 40,000 km at its peak ie around 40% of the German network of 78,000 km and 35% of the pre-1941 Soviet network. The NKPS used around 11,000 locomotives in this area pre-war and the wartime DRB used 29,000 locomotives on their 78,000 km. Yet GVD Osten used only 4,671 engines on their 30,000 + km which was less than half the density of locomotives that either the DRB or NKPS would have used on this length of track.
Finally, even if the Gerans managed to re-gauge the entire rail net in the occupied parts of the USSR, did they also re-gauge every little secondary line, every shunting yard and every siding - i.e. they may have inherited a massively long rail network, but the capacity may not have been the same, and the needs certainly weren't.
In short, I think that comparisons between the GVD Osten and pre-Barbarossa Soviet railways should be handled with great care.
...but overall DR locomotive stocks are higher. Admittedly, the Germans have assumed certain responsibilites by 01.05 1944 that they didn't have by Jan. 1st 1943 - mainly, supplying Italy - but that is a small and trivial addition compared to the loss of territory (and rail lines) in the east as shown by Potgiesser's table.In 1944 when the GVD Osten track has shrunk to under 10,000, the density of locomotives is still lower.