In the second half of 1942 Donetsk Basin industry and Krasnodar oilfields were firmly in German hands. 1st Panzer Army was not far from Grozny and Baku oilfields seem to be reached soon.
However coal and iron ore output was nowhere near full capacity because of serious damage to infrastructure, Technische Brigade Mineralöl reported from Krasnodar that it needed at least 6 month to get any oil flowing out, it was still near 500km from Grozny to Baku but German advance stopped just north of Grozny, short of oilfields there...
Nevertheless plans were made to bring all of those resources back to Germany on a grand scale.
A wide gauged train network (3000 mm) was planned with colossal locomotives and wagons.
At that time Soviet largest tank wagon had tank capacity of 50 cubic meters. Reichsbahn planned a 300 cubic meters one.
Largest Soviet open wagon had 60 tons load, Reichsbahn planned a 320 tons one.
- Soviet 50m3 tank wagon
- Planned Reichsbahn 300m3 tank wagon
- Soviet 60t open wagon
- Planned Reichsbahn 320t open wagon
Previous short discussion on this forum and sources:
Wide Gauge Railway