| German Federal Railroad (DB) class 44 heavy freight steam locomotive with a type 2´2´T30 tub-style tender.
Black/red basic paint scheme. Witte smoke deflectors, dual headlights, smoke box with central locking, without an inductive magnet.
The locomotive looks as it did around 1950.
Source: www.maerklin.de
Just a few years after the devastating Second World War, the West German economy experienced a remarkable upswing. With the introduction in 1948 of the D-Mark began the prosperous economic miracle years. As early as 1950, real income for an average working family had exceeded the prewar level. The new German Federal Railroad (DB) as the most important means of transport had to keep up with this rapid development. Heavy freight locomotives were especially in demand, whereby the railroad was in the fortunate position of being able acquire over 1,000 units of the class 44 heavy three-cylinder locomotive. The class 44 units were among the best standard design locomotives built by the German State Railroad starting in 1926. However, the DB immediately did technical improvements, which often also reduced maintenance costs. On the class 44, the front skirting was removed, the air compressor and feedwater pump were moved from niches in the smoke box area to the middle of the boiler to be more maintenance friendly and the central smoke box lock was removed as on all other DB steam locomotives. Witte smoke deflectors replaced the large Wagner units or they were installed on locomotives built during the war without smoke deflectors. In 1950, the German Federal Railroad sent road number 44 1143 of Schweinfurt to the Munich locomotive builder Krauss-Maffei for a basic overhaul due an overload at the railroads own maintenance facilities. A few months later, the locomotive was gleaming in new splendor, and its appearance had fundamentally changed – with Witte deflectors, without skirting, and with the compressor and pump in the middle of the locomotive. Curiously, the central smoke box locking mechanism remained preserved. However, you looked in vain for the inductive magnet (inductive train control) already in wide use at that time. The most striking thing was the type 2‘2’T30 tub-style tender newly coupled to the locomotive, which actually belonged to the classes 52 and 42. The operational service due to this unusual combination had to have been somewhat unpleasant because the water supply was 4 cubic meters / 1,057 gallons less compared to a standard tender, which definitely played a role with the class 44. This Jumbo will also attract a lot of attention on a model railroad. The variety of individual locomotive types during the economic miracle years can be shown impressively with it and the many other Märklin Era III steam locomotives. Locomotives had to run then. The expression Corporate Design was a foreign word. Full speed ahead seemed more important. Road number 44 1143 is moreover an interesting exception – like the successful and exclusive Märklin Insider model. The DB had to be sure three other class 44 units with a tub-style tender. This one was larger, carried 34 cubic meters / 8,982 gallons of water, and was designed and built in 1942 by Borsig as an experiment especially for the class 44. |
