| French East Railroad (EST) class 13 (241-A) heavy express train steam locomotive with a tender. The Compagnie des chemins de fer de lEst (CF de lEst), often referred to simply as the Est company, was an early French railway company. The company was formed in 1853 by the merger of Compagnie du chemin de fer de Paris à Strasbourg, operating the Paris-Strasbourg line, and Compagnie du chemin de fer de Montereau à Troyes.[1] In 1938 it became part of the majority state-owned Société Nationale des Chemins de fer Français (SNCF).
Version as a locomotive for the EDELWEISS express train passenger car set. Changes to the smoke deflectors specific to the type. Dual headlights with kerosene lamps, with one lamp above and one lamp below.
The locomotive looks as it did around 1931.
Source: www.maerklin.de
EST Class 13 (241 A) Steam Locomotive At the start of the Twenties, the French East Railroad (EST) urgently needed a motive power unit to haul its heavy express trains on the line Paris – Belfort – Basle. The new locomotive was planned to haul a 700-ton train at a constant speed of 115 km/h / 72 mph on level track with a maximum speed of 120 km/h / 75 mph, which required a continuous performance of 2,720 horsepower. Even more ambitious was the requirement to pull 800 tons at 80 km/h / 50 mph on a 0.5% grade. Around 3,540 horsepower was necessary for this – an exorbitant level of performance for steam locomotives! A prototype delivered on January 17, 1926 by Fives-Lille with number 41.001 was the first time the Mountain 4-8-2 wheel arrangement was presented in Europe. In line with French practice, it was designed as a four-cylinder compound locomotive using de Glehn/du Bousquet principles with separately adjustable Heusinger valve gear for the high and low pressure running gear. After extensive testing, another 89 units were built between 1930 and 1934. They differed in several details from the prototype. Forty units with road numbers 241 002-041 were delivered to the EST and 49 locomotives went to the ÉTAT. The prototypes road number was changed to 241 001. The class 241 A locomotives had a type of boiler new in Europe that was based on an American design with a large combustion chamber as well as Nicholson design thermal syphons. The boiler was fed water by means of an exhaust steam injector and two live steam injectors. The inner cylinders (low-pressure cylinders) worked on the offset driving wheel set and the external cylinders (high-pressure cylinders) worked on the second driving wheel set. A slide valve allowed high-pressure steam to reach the low-pressure cylinders during a start up or when greater performance was required. While the EST used their Mountains pulling heavy express trains on the routing Paris – Belfort – Mulhouse – Basle to bring vacationers bent on the mountains or starved for sun to Switzerland or to Italy, the ÉTAT ensured the connection to the ships landing at Cherbourg or Le Havre from the USA or Great Britain. Yet, the ÉTAT was not happy with their Mountains, since the latters high weight and the large fixed wheelbase apparently caused a high degree of wear to the track. They therefore sold all 49 units to the EST. After its founding in 1938, the SNCF took over all 90 locomotives, which after different temporary numbering schemes were given the road numbers 241 A 1-41 (EST locomotives in the original sequence) and 241 A 42-90 (former ÉTAT units in an altered sequence). The SNCF used these locomotives until their retirement in the years 1960 to 1965 mainly between Paris and Strasbourg as well as Paris and Basle. Two examples remain preserved: road number 241 A 1 at the Mulhouse Railroad Museum and road number 241 A 65 in operational condition in Switzerland.
When the French railroads were nationalized and SNCF was created in 1938, the Est 241s were reclassified as 241 As and renumbered 241 A 001 to 241 A 90, with the former 241-001 becoming 241 A 65. During World War II, many SNCF locomotives were taken to Germany to be used on the Deutsche Reichsbahn, and 241 A 65 was captured and put to use in the Erfurt area. After the war, 241 A 65 was returned to France and stayed for a year at Le Mans before being transferred to Chaumont in eastern France, where she remained for nearly 20 years before retiring from active service on July 23, 1965. Instead of scrapping the locomotive, SNCF kept 241 A 65 as a boiler to supply steam to the workshops at Chaumont until May 1968. |
