German Railways in the East

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Re: German Railways in the East

#76

Post by Der Alte Fritz » 24 Jan 2014, 17:19


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Re: German Railways in the East

#77

Post by Der Alte Fritz » 25 Jan 2014, 01:33

V. Ostbau
The winter difficulties 1941/42, had shown very clearly that the line performance numbers first adopted were wrong because their building security was lacking, and the deficiencies of the railway operation, caused by weaknesses of the organization as well as human and material shortcomings revealed so vividly that now the following fundamental had to come almost inevitably change. By following command from 01.04.1942 the expansion, maintenance and management have been largely transferred the Reich Minister of Transport on the Railways operated in occupied Russia and the blue railway staff again completely subordinate to him.

The Fuehrer and Supreme Commander
the Wehrmacht

Fiihrer Headquarters, 4 1 1942

OKW / WFSTb / Qu (Verw) No 8/42

1) From a yet to be determined day occurs for the railway network in the occupied Eastern territories following organizational rules in force.
a) The development and maintenance of the network for the highest performance and the operational management within an area designated in greater detail the responsibility of the Reich Minister of Transport.
b) The transportation chief notes the performance program for the development of the network on the scope and time. He gives the instructions for use of the network for the purpose of the Wehrmacht.
2) The required after 1 a) operating personnel, the Reichsbahn, which is under it in their official and disciplinary law. The disciplinary and criminal conditions are necessary, to be regulated by additional provisions. Food and accommodation of the Reichsbahn personnel is specifically stated in the agreement with the Quartermaster General.
3) The labour required for the expansion of the network are provided by Construction department of the Reichsbahn, the Army, the Organization Todt, the Construction Staff Speer or otherwise approximately put on the Construction units  after the construction planning of the operational leading railway departments.
4) As regards the development of the network and for the operation execution, the Reichsbahn the necessary mechanical equipment, devices and materials as far as possible from their stocks. Missing amounts are to be procured by them. For this purpose, the Reichsbahn receives special quotas by Reich Minister of Economics. The production is at the highest priority level (SS).
5) As regards the remaining military service links the German Reichsbahn also all the necessary facilities, equipment and materials in the same way as for the service operated by it in the eastern routes.
6) closely co-operation between the Ministry of Transport and Transportation Chef is made sure.
7) The measures necessary for the implementation and completion of this arrangement shall be issued by the Chief of the High Command of the Wehrmacht.
Gen. Adolf Hitler
38
This new regulation came into force on 14.1.1942 0 Hours. Even on the same day the 73-year reign Transport Minister Dr. Ing Julius Dorpmüller on an extended tour of inspection in the districts of Minsk and Kiev in Brest-Litovsk. In the following days he will be taking, with those close co-workers of his ministry repeated visits to its subordinate lines and stations in occupied Russia seek to personally convince themselves of the local difficulties and progress.
So he stayed on 18.04.1942 in Pskov and travelled in July of the same year, the districts of Kiev and Dnepropetrovsk, including the Crimea. At the same time went to his order, provided with special powers senior officials of the Deutsche Reichsbahn of the construction, operation and machine service in the HBD-districts to determine how far reconstruction and extension of systems were advanced, the obstacles to the progress of the construction and improvement of active powers were opposed to and by what means the identified obstacles could be eliminated as quickly and well as possible.
39
Thus, the still large human and material resources of the Deutsche Reichsbahn were activated for the Eastern territories in the shortest possible time. The work of the already initiated "emergency program" were promoted by all means and completed in April 1942. At the same time the performance of the railways were new demands of the transport bosses at HBDen and East railways performed the corresponding expansion plans and in the "Ostbau 1942" program summarized. Its execution was provided for the period from 1 5.1942 to 1.10.1942.
After further development of the military situation, this process is repeated several times and led to the construction program "Winter Ostbau 1942" for the period from 1.10.1942 to 05.01.1943 and "Ostbau 1943" for the period from 05.01.1943. The building deadlines were measured extremely short. The state of execution had at regular intervals and in specified breakdown are reported to the Transport Chef constantly on specified dates. For the individual areas of expertise, the Commission has clear guidelines for the design of the railway facilities issued by appointed, experts.
The GVD East gave guidelines for the assessment of the number of safe winter locomotive stalls and thawing stands 15 and ordered that the "underpinnings of performance" by at least double, if not triple installation of mechanical equipment should be ensured. Reserve equipment for water and power supply should be spatially separated because of the danger of air raids and sabotage attacks. For water stations following expansion demands were made:

Since the water supply in Wehrmacht trains for a locomotive sufficient for a maximum of 60 to 70 km drive, in these intervals for a main water stations at which assume all the locomotives regular water. Between two such bodies a smaller auxiliary water station is to be located, supplement their water supply in the single locomotive in case of need. The water points must be able to deliver within 20 hours regardless of the weather, the calculated daily amount. The pump system must be dimensioned accordingly. The Main Water Station must have a standby pump, so that the failure of a pump, the rest along the. able to cover the full daily requirement. The hourly pumping capacity of Auxillary-water stations should be at least 10 m cu. For reasons of operational security possible steam pumps are necessary to provide electrical power only if the power supply can be absolutely assured. Water tank for storage are to be made. On the main water stations to be placed in the minute for each 24 to be treated locomotive water crane with a discharge rate of at least 2 m cu. Watering the locomotive must be possible on the main water stations in both directions of travel without unclamping the locomotive from the course. On the auxiliary water stations, the minimum outflow to the cranes 1 cu m be a minute.
For the immediate expansion of signaling systems GVD East announced on 02.15.1942 issued guidelines, which provided for the following main equipment:
1) Entry Signals for all stations, possible double bladed signals and remotely.
2) exit signals at all major railway stations in a planned route power of 36 trains and more every day in one direction. (note 3)
3) multiplication of block signals, if necessary with hand operated, wooden signals.
4) distant signals for block and Entry Signals as a non-adjustable wooden signals with a yellow light in the dark.
5) Hand closures on trains facing turnouts. (note 1)

On 24.05.1942 followed from Warsaw further instructions for the RVDen and FEKdos, in their preliminary observations noted in particular that the state and the development stages of the found signal systems vary widely, that the large track lengths make it provisionally impossible to equip the security systems as you're used to at home, and that the success lies in the fact, to achieve maximum operating efficiency under the best utilization and exploitation of existing and with a minimum expenditure of labor and materials.
41
In the field of telecommunications had to be created as original equipment to all major routes of three basic compounds, namely
a Main railway line telephone connection
a telephone-District connection,
a telephone trunk connection.
Then Dispatchers lines and other district connections between the trainlines and Higher trainlines, small or large exchanges and carrier frequency connections, 17 were established between the Directions.
The long distance from home and the high locomotive damage incurred made ​​it to avoid unproductive idle time of damaged locomotives and damaged wagons immediately necessary to rebuild the found repair works or, where impracticable appeared because of the large extent of the damage, such as in Kiev, in suitable factories replacement works to set up. To the Ostbau programs therefore also included the development of many outdated factory buildings and the construction of new Locomotive repair sheds, boilermakers, heat-up and tender flakes and  boiler houses. Whole plants were moved from Germany to the occupied territories. For example, the RAW Kaiserslautern was transferred with staff and all facilities by Konotop. The endeavor, the home and means of transport to provide relief also gave the initiative to introduce the Hand-making of materials, spare parts and accessories of vehicles in the workshops of the East.
Accordingly, the central production of pumps, valves, brake, suspension springs, turbo-generators, bearing parts, castings, switches, hardware and tools for the superstructure and the production of oxygen in the EAW (Elektro-Apparate-Werke?) was set in motion.
The planning and monitoring of the construction work was exclusively in the hands of the specialist staff of the railway. In the districts of HBDen until 25.8.1942 25 new offices were established.
The commander of the Railway Troops (Bedeis). continued to work for the FEKdos and HBDen. In the latter, the railway pioneer Construction Headquarters remained until the establishment of new departments. In addition to the railway pioneers a variety of other organizations had personnel involved in the execution of the buildings. The "Organisation Todt" (OT) had been contracted in September 1941 10,000 workers in three collection camps in Rastenburg Tomaszow and Breslau to their removal in the Occupied Eastern Territories 225 passenger and 465 freight cars were needed. The OT stationed from 06.04.1942 three working group leader in Pskov, Minsk and Dnipropetrovsk.
Further were beside the Construction Staff Speer and Gießler as well as several German construction companies mainly work trains of the Deutsche Reichsbahn (track maintenance trains, Switch construction trains, Re-gauging trains, bridge construction trains. Steelworking trains, Telephone installation trains, mechanical engineering work trains, Water station construction trains, and Power supply construction trains) and locals, recruited by the new authorities and railway offices  workers for the construction of the Ostbau programs operate.
In the district of a single new Office of the RVD Minsk in Orsha total of 3,500 men were employed, for example. The total number of workers employed in the district of Minsk in building was:
1.6.1942 16,932
15.9.1942 35,552
15.2.1943 22,845
15.7.1943 31,283
15.2.1944 13,530


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Re: German Railways in the East

#78

Post by Der Alte Fritz » 25 Jan 2014, 01:35

The restoration works were themselves not always safe behind the front, as especially in the fields of Pripyat marshes at the beginning of 1942, the partisans deployed a lively activity. So the OT construction camp by Partisans who raided had repeated visits. In February 1942, took place, for example, between Gomel and Luniniec such an attack on a 30-strong OT group, were killed, the 8 others were missing. The materials needed for the construction programs were mainly fed to the occupied areas from Germany and brought under the codename of "Peter" items on the way.
42
Only the supply of sleepers and other timber was organized over again put into operation or refurbished, fixed or mobile sawmills in Russia itself. met Alone for safety systems in the spring of 1942 in the district of Kiev 212 car with a signal substances. The current acute shortage of particularly signal wire (note18), could thus be eliminated first. To simplify the construction and accelerate block locations, water containers, roundhouse, thawing stands (note15) and other facilities of the operating plants were serially manufactured in traditional style, in Germany and placed on a modular basis at destination. For the sub-distribution of valuable retail building materials such as roofing materials, installation materials, nails, hardware, paints, glass and glue construction warehouse were set up in the HBDen.

All these measures have contributed to cause the kilometer lengths of the routes operated increased rapidly and significantly, as Figure 6 shows, for the four HBD-districts.

Fig.6: Length in kilometers of the routes operated in 4 RVD districts 1942-1943

The magnitude of the construction work will be illustrated by a few examples from various RVD districts:
In the RVD Riga district were
7.500 km track re-gauged,
2.250 km track re-laid,
Installed 5,180 points,
carried out earthworks of 20 million RM,
spent a total of 104 million RM for the above work.

In the RVD Kiev district were
on 24.11.1942 69 new water towers in preparation,
ready by 15.7.1942 216 Block sets of points
and expansion by
232 signal boxes Russian type
49 signal boxes German design,
44 works of major importance (note 19)
46 signal adjusting points systems
80 signal box building

taken by September into operation in 1943
3.818 km carrier frequency connexions (note 17),
2.960 km 3 mm copper overhead lines,
20.6 thousand kilometers 4 and 5 mm-iron overhead lines,
700 km 4 mm iron lines with pure operation calls.
25 teletype main connexions.

from May to December 1942 1.350 km of 24-pair cable from Lemberg to Kiev and Stalino laid and including the respective amplifier stations been added to the operation. (The Ukraine Cable.) In the RVD Minsk district, the statistics show the following works:

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Re: German Railways in the East

#79

Post by Der Alte Fritz » 25 Jan 2014, 01:42

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Re: German Railways in the East

#80

Post by Der Alte Fritz » 25 Jan 2014, 01:43

An especially important and difficult bridge structures that have been restored are:
The south and north bridge (15.12.1942) across the Dnieper River in Kiev,
The Dnieper Brüeken at Kanev and Dnepropetrovsk,
The 1 km long Dnieper bridge at Kremenchug (completed March 1942)
The Dnieper River bridge south of the dam at Zaporozhye,
(which, however, was blown up as well as the 8000m one 2 km to the north of the dam shortly after the restoration during the retreat again)
The Narva bridge on the route Tallinn-Leningrad,
The 3 km long bridge across the Dnieper at Aleshki (route Kherson-e-Dshankoj [Crimea]), which replaced a railway ferry, and finally the impressive bridge across the Bug at Trichaty (route Nikolaev-Odessa).
In 1948, an attempt was made ​​to determine the capital cost of the Deutsche Reichsbahn of the increase in value of the railways in Europe outside the borders of Germany. In this study, the cost of construction in Riga, Minsk and Dnipropetrovsk RVD districts including the addition of Reserves, Communication and Mechanical plants with 750 million RM were calculated.
This amount appears but the evaluation of the effort for Ostbauprogramme to be too low, because by the "financial statements of the investment fund of the railways in the occupied eastern territories" that are included for the years 1942 and 1943 in the original in the files of the Reich Transport Ministry, will include the following "triviality costs" proved:
47
Other operating costs:
1942
For Buildings 414 Mill. RM
For Vehicles, plant & machinery 144 Mill. RM
total 558 Mill. RM
1943
For Buildings 462 Mill. RM
For Vehicles, plant & machinery 221 Mill. RM
total 683 Mill. RM
total
For Buildings 876 Mill. RM
For Vehicles, plant & machinery 365 Mill. RM
total 1,241 Mill. RM

It does not include:
1 The spending up to 31/12/1941
2 The expenditure on the RVD Rostov and FEKdos
3 The expenditure on the engineering corps (Army Pioniertruppe) and organizations (OT, etc.), which were supported directly by the Wehrmacht and the German Reich. Accordingly, the expenditure incurred in the war of Germany for the reconstruction and the addition of railways in occupied Russia costs should be about 1.5 to 2.0 billion RM.

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Re: German Railways in the East

#81

Post by Der Alte Fritz » 25 Jan 2014, 11:53

There does not exist a complete picture of the railways in the East but the monetary estimates above give us some indication but without any context. To put it into perspective here are the DRB operating figures for 1939:

Mierzejewski Hitler's Trains page 86
Capital Balance Sheet DRB 1939 (million RM)
Rolling stock acquisitions 383.3
Real expansion 677.9 RM
New construction 598.4 RM
Operations development 79.5 RM

Revenue 3,770 RM

Capital Balancce Sheet DRB 1942 p169 (million RM)
Real expansion 870.5 RM
New construction 788.9 RM
Operations development 81.6 RM

Revenue 4,030 RM

So the spending of the RVM of 558 Million RM is substantial but not huge about 60% of what the DRB was spending on its own Real Expansion and about 14% of the DRB income(though of course this was paid from the RVM account and not the DRB account)

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Re: German Railways in the East

#82

Post by Der Alte Fritz » 25 Jan 2014, 13:33

Another comparison can be made with the much better documented Otto II programme which ran from 31st October 1940 until 15th April 1941 and some works extended until 22nd June. The aim was to upgrade 5+ railway lines over a distance of 300km and install the handling facilities for unloading trains at the border, the spending on this programme was 307 million RM and it used 30,000 men (including impressed Polish Jews) and 300,000 t of steel.

This would put in purely monetary terms the three Ostbau Programmes on a roughly similar rate of construction, the Otto II at 307 million Rm for 6 months and the Ostbau at 558 million Rm for 1942 or 683 Million Rm for 1943 for the full years building work.

Similarly, the Otto programme of 5-7 lines over 300 km is smaller than the 7-9 lines over 1,000-1,500 km distance in GVD Osten but the full range of programmes over 2 years could cover that to a similar level. Of course the Ostbahn continued to receive upgrades after the Otto Programme through 1942-43.

The other way of looking at it is at total length of lines with the Ostbahn having a total of 7,000 km and GVD Osten 42,000 km of which 30,000 was in RVD/HBD and under fairly regular German control. That made GVD Osten between 4.5 and 6 times more track length than Ostbahn. If Otto II is a factor of 100 then the combined Ostbau Programmes monetary value is 404, around a similar amount to the track length.

So we can conclude that the upgrade was a basic upgrade of the capacity spread over two years.

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Re: German Railways in the East

#83

Post by GregSingh » 25 Jan 2014, 14:59

Quite impressive bridge constructions in the Ukraine over Dnieper river...

Those articles you asked about are Reichsverkehrsministerium publications and I am not sure if they are available on the internet.
It seems both use Soviet data from before 1941.
These are the chapters from Dr.Georg Garbe's article:
- Rascher Anstieg des Verkehrsaufkommens unter den Fünf Jahresplänen
- Unzureichende Investitionen im Verkehrswesen
- Überlastung des sowjetischen Bahnnetzes
- Durchgreifende Reform des Eisenbahnwesens
- Vergeblicher Kampf gegen die langen Verkehrswege
- Unwirtschaftliche Gütertransporte
- Die Verkehrspläne im dritten Planjährfünft (1938—1942)
Unfortunately sources are not provided, but he referred to articles from "Wochenbericht des Instituts für Konjunkturforschung":
"Das Eisenbahnnetz der UdSSR" from 30 December 1939
"Die Automobilindustrie der UdSSR" from 26 January 1940
"Der Stand der Industrieproduktion in der UdSSR" from 30 March 1940

Oberreichsbahnrat Dr. Wehde-Textor wrote several articles about Soviet economy and transport.
So far I have:
- Die Eisenbahnen der westlichen Ukraine und Weißrußlands
- Wirtschaft und Verkehr in Weißrußland
- Wirtschaft und Verkehr in der Ukraine
- Wirtschaft und Vorkehr im Zentralrussischen Industriebezirk
- Wirtschaft und Verkehr im Leningrader Gebiet
- Das Zweite Baku - das Kusnezkrevier - und der Ural
- Erdölvorkommen im Kaukasus
- Die wirtschaftliche Hauptaufgabe der SSR und die Entwicklungswege des Eisenbahnverkehrs
These seem to be based on 1939-40 Soviet articles from: Sozialistitscheski Transport and Planowoje Chosaistwo (Planwirtschaft).
Dr. Wehde-Textor published several books after the war and back in 1942 apparently his place of residence was Minsk...

I was actually surprised how accurate picture of Soviet industry and transportation was presented in those articles.
Seems to me that not many people who should, actually read them back in those years...
Bureaucracy produces a lot of paperwork...hard to find really important stuff among the garbage...

Back in 1942-43 Reichsverkehrsministerium was publishing quite detailed reports about railroads in Asia, Africa, USA, South America and even Australia.

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Re: German Railways in the East

#84

Post by Der Alte Fritz » 25 Jan 2014, 15:24

We know further details of the Ostbau Programmes from the FMS papers. One of these describes the work carried out in the Ostbau 42 programme in the area around Kowel - a key junction on the Ukraine main line:
000005c7.jpg
The objective of the Ostbau 42 programme was to raise the main double tracked line which you can see in the middle of the map from 24 trains a day each way to 36 trains and also raise the junctions by a similar capacity. Kowel had 18 trains a day coming in from the north from Brest and 6 trains a day from the west. Lemburg had 72 trains a day and sent some of these down the track to Odessa (24 trains?) while 24 went up the small track to Rovno.

I can recommend reading this US report about rail net capacities which explains that rail track capacity is not the only limiting factor, junction capacity does as well. Two tracks with a capacity of 24 trains a day does not equal a capacity of 48 trains unless the junction at the end can handle those trains as well.

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Re: German Railways in the East

#85

Post by Der Alte Fritz » 25 Jan 2014, 16:00

Quite impressive bridge constructions in the Ukraine over Dnieper river...

Those articles you asked about are Reichsverkehrsministerium publications and I am not sure if they are available on the internet.
It seems both use Soviet data from before 1941. These are the chapters from Dr.Georg Garbe's article:
I have some pictures of those bridges over the Dneipr being built and completed which I shall post later. It is quite an important element of the supply of the Stalingrad campaign.

The articles all look great (if there is anything you can send me, I would be grateful) and show a really detailed knowledge of what was happening in the Soviet network. This was certainly an area where the Soviets liked to trumpet their achievements worldwide, for instance this magazine was published in 5 languages in 1938 including German http://library2.usask.ca/USSRConst/gallery/railways

and your list of articles correctly identifies the issues that the Soviets were dealing with pre-war,
- long hauls resulting from gigantomania large industrial concerns - regionalism only started to reverse this from 1936
- a high accident rate due to poor staff training and low track maintenance
- overloading of the network on certain stretches
- lack of investment - only true in 1932-34, after that the NKPS took from 1935-38 around 20% of the total USSR economic investment

But also there was the effect that railways are systems and experts are only really comfortable within their own frame of reference/system, so what looked old fashioned and ramshackled to German eyes, did not seem so bad to US eyes as they were used to a variety of systems and the Soviet system mirrored quite closely some US Rail Companies such as the Pennsylvania from the early 1920s. The article "- Überlastung des sowjetischen Bahnnetzes" would be the interesting one to see in this respect. Also remember that the NKPS did not run normal traffic patterns, if they wanted to move more freight, they shut down, and did so, passenger services - unthinkable in German eyes.

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Re: German Railways in the East

#86

Post by Der Alte Fritz » 25 Jan 2014, 21:07

Trunk Lines of the USSR + Dneipr bridges.jpg
This map shows the bridges mentioned in the text and these bridges cover every railway line across the Dneipr. Most of these bridges were restored between November and March 1942. In the meantime, the supplies had to be trans-shipped and ferried across the river and then moved by captured broad gauge rolling stock operated by the Field Railway Detachments. At Kiev in December, they built an Ice bridge over the frozen river which carried trains for several months.

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Re: German Railways in the East

#87

Post by Der Alte Fritz » 26 Jan 2014, 10:27

Dr. Georg Garbe (geb. 1904)

1932-1933 Statistisches Reichsamt,
1933-1945 Institut für Konjunkturforschung, "Institute for Business Research"
1945-1949 Hauptverwaltung der Deutschen Reichsbahn, Berlin,
1949-1950 Magistrat Berlin (West),
1950-1969 BMP, dort Leiter des Referats IV D (Allgemeine Wirtschafts- und Finanzpolitik der Deutschen Bundespost; seit 1954: Volkswirtschaftliche Angelegenheiten und finanzpolitische Grundsatzfragen u.a., seit 1960: Wirtschaftspolitik u.a.).
R 5/216
Druckansicht
Verkehrswissenschaftlicher Forschungsrat im RVM.- Vergabe von Forschungsaufträgen an Wirtschaftsinstitute
Enthält u.a.:
"Europäische Eisenbahnzahlen 1937", angefertigt von Dr. Georg Garbe, Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, 1942
"Die Bedeutung der Saisonschwankungen im Güterverkehr für die Kriegswirtschaft", angefertigt im Institut für Konjunkturforschung, 1943
Traffic Scientific Research in RVM -. Awarding research contracts to economic institutions
Contains among others:
"European Railway figures 1937", prepared by Dr. George Garbe, German Institute for Economic Research, 1942
"The importance of seasonal fluctuations in freight transport for the war economy 'prepared at the Institute of Economic Research, 1943
Bundesarchiv ref: R 5/216

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Re: German Railways in the East

#88

Post by Der Alte Fritz » 27 Jan 2014, 09:52

Cannot find any biographical details on Dr. Otto Wehde-Textor at present.

But did find these references in other publications:

Verkehr: Zweiter Band, Zweite Halfte: Die Entwicklung Des Verkehrssystems By Dr. Rer. Pol. Habil. Dr. Jur. Fritz Voigt
Image1.jpg
Image1.jpg (36.82 KiB) Viewed 1961 times
The Collapse of the German War Economy, 1944-1945: Allied Air Power and the ... By Alfred C. Mierzejewski
Image2.jpg
Image2.jpg (7.71 KiB) Viewed 1961 times
A useful starting point for research is this list of railway periodicals (in German but translates well using the Chrome browser)
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_wich ... nperiodika

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Re: German Railways in the East

#89

Post by Der Alte Fritz » 27 Jan 2014, 15:14

I have also been pursuing the question of which locomotives and rolling stock were used in the East.

Pottgeisser makes this comment about the winter of 1941:
6. Die Umspurung der Breitspurlok ist im Bereich des FEKdo 5 kaum möglich und unwirtschaftlich. Für die Umspurung wird folgende Reihenfolge vorgeschlagen:
1. ehemals preußische und polnische Normalspurlok,
2. ehemals österreichische Normalspurlok,
3. Breitspurlok westeuropäischer Bauarten,
4. Breitspurlok russischer Bauarten.


6 The regauging of broad gauge locomotives is in the area of 5 FEKdo almost impossible and uneconomical. For the regauging following sequence is suggested:
1 former Prussian and Polish Standard gauge locomotives,
2 formerly Austrian Standard gauge locomotives,
3 broad gauge locomotives Western European designs,
4 broad gauge locomotives Russian designs.
By which I think he means that when a route is captured, they start with Russian broad gauge locos, replace these German broad gauge ones as the Russian ones wear out and become unservicable (quite a common problem) and then once the gauge has been changed by the Eisenbahnpioniere, use lightweight Austrian ones and then once the OT/DRB/engineer companies have strengthen the track use the P8 or P9 Prussian locomotives or the Polish Decapods (since these all run on 15 t axle weights). Once the track is fully upgraded then you see the DRB Class 41 Einheitslokomotiven and French locomotives with higher axle weights. Once the Type 52 arrives in 1942 they could miss out the Prussian/Polish section.

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Re: German Railways in the East

#90

Post by GregSingh » 28 Jan 2014, 01:05

Those two bridges around Zaporozhye seem to be a part of only one railway? One goes over Old Dnjepr, the other over Dnjepr.
Is this correct or something else was built which is not on this map?
Attachments
Saporoshje_1942.jpg
German 1942 Map - Saporoshje

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