Adler (locomotive)

Adler
Replica of Adler at Fürth, May 2008
Type and origin Power type Steam Builder George & Robert Stephenson Build date 1835 Total produced 1
Specifications Configuration: ​  • Whyte 2-2-2  • UIC 1A1 Gauge 56.5 Leading dia. 915 millimetres (3 ft 0 in) Driver dia. 1,372 millimetres (4 ft 6 in) Trailing dia. 915 millimetres (3 ft 0 in) Length 7.62 metres (25 ft 0 in) Loco weight 11.4 tonnes (11.2 long tons) (empty) 14.3 tonnes (14.1 long tons) (working order) Tender weight 6 tonnes (5.9 long tons) Boiler pressure 3.3 bars (48 psi) Heating surface 18.2 square metres (196 sq ft) Cylinders 2 Cylinder size 229 mm x 406 mm
Career First run 7 December 1835 Withdrawn 1857 Scrapped 1857 Disposition Scrapped
Two replicas in existence

The Adler (German for "Eagle") was a British-built, German steam locomotive with the wheel arrangement 2-2-2 (Whyte notation) or 1A1 (UIC classification), and was the first locomotive to run successfully in Germany. It was built to order in 1835 by the British railway pioneers George and Robert Stephenson and delivered to the Bavarian Ludwigsbahn (Bayerische Ludwigsbahn) which ran between Nuremberg and Fürth. It ran for the first time there on 7 December 1835. The Adler was furnished with a tender of the type 2 T 2.

History

Design and first journey

The search for a suitable locomotive for the first public German railway line, the Bavarian Ludwigsbahn, started in England. But when the price asked by Stephenson appeared too high, it was initially decided to award the contract for the construction of a locomotive to a German firm. This plan fell through, however, and so an urgent order had to be placed with Stephenson after all, because the opening date for the line was rapidly approaching. The locomotive was delivered to Nuremberg in over 100 individual components at a cost of 1750 pounds sterling. In 1835, the steam engine was assembled in the workshops of the Johann Wilhelm Spaeth engineering works.

Operation and retirement

On 7 December 1835 the Adler, driven by William Wilson, ran for the first time on the 7.45 kilometre long Ludwigsbahn founded by Georg Zacharias Platner.

After running successfully for over twenty years the now technically-outdated locomotive was sold for scrap minus its wheels in 1857. A photograph of the Adler taken around 1851, and probably the only one in existence, is in the Nuremberg city archives.

Earlier German locomotives

Contrary to the widely-held view that the Adler was the first railway locomotive on German soil, the Royal Prussian Steelworks in 1816 had built an operational steam engine, the Krigar locomotive, that hauled a wagon with an 8000 pound load in trials, but did not enter commercial service. That said, the Adler was undoubtedly the first successful locomotive in Germany.

Replicas

Adler (1935 replica) in Nuremberg in 1999

To celebrate the centenary of the railways in Germany in 1935 a replica of the Adler was built by the Deutsche Reichsbahn in the Kaiserslautern repair shop (Ausbesserungswerk), which was largely true to the original. In 1984 it was rebuilt for the 150th anniversary by the Deutsche Bundesbahn in the Offenburg repair shop and took part in numerous events across Germany. It stood in the Nuremberg Transport Museum until 2005 when it was damaged by fire. In 2007 the Adler was restored and returned to display at the museum. The replica attained an average speed of 33,7 km/h in tests on an 81 kilometre stretch of line. The route had gradients of between 1:110 and 1:140.

Another replica that, unlike the 1935 version, is not operational, was built during the 1950s at the Kaiserslautern shop and is also to be found as a display model in the Nuremberg Transport Museum.

At a fire in the museum's roundhouse at the Nuremberg West locomotive depot on 17 October 2005, which at that time contained 24 locomotives, the still-working Adler replica was one of many engines that were badly damaged. Nevertheless the management of the DB decided to restore it. The wreck was lifted from the ruins of the roundhouse on 7 November by a mobile crane in a four-hour operation by a recovery gang from the Preßnitz Valley Railway and taken by special low-loader to the Meiningen Steam Locomotive Works. It was discovered that the boiler at least, thanks to its being full of water, was relatively undamaged, although its entire wooden cladding had been burnt and many plates had melted, and it could therefore be used for the reconstruction in 2007. The metal-sheathed wooden frame was however so badly damaged, that it had to be completely built from scratch. A third-class wagon that had been stored at a different location and so had survived the fire, served as a template for the new coach-like wagons that were built by a Meiningen carpenter's shop.

The reconstruction started in mid-April 2007 and was finished by the October. The cost ran to about a million euros, of which 200,000 euros was donated by the public. The director of the DB Museum Nuremberg assuaged fears before the reconstruction began that the rebuilding work would not be able to replicate the details of the locomotive damaged by the fire and explained: "No compromises will be made!" It was even more accurately built by using historical drawings, so for example the reconstruction of the chimney damaged in the fire was not based on the 1935 replica, but on the original design. The biggest problem was the one-piece driving axle. This could not be made in the Meiningen works, so at short notice another firm was found which could carry out the work.

• 
  Name plate of the Adler replica
• 
  Driving axle, September 2006
• 
  Boiler and chimney, September 2006
• 
  View from front right, September 2007
• 
  Close-up from rear right, September 2007

Since 1964 a 1:2 scale, motorised replica, the "Mini-Adler", had run at Nuremberg Zoo. It started in the vicinity of the entrance and shuttled to the children's zoo. In the course of the dolphin lagoon project this line had to be closed, but an extension or move of the route is planned.

As part of the town's millennium celebrations "1000 years in Fürth" a bus was decorated with the Adler, and advertised an exhibition, at which donations for the reconstruction were collected.

Since 23 November 2007 the rebuilt "old" Adler has been housed with an old (1935) and two new (2007) passenger wagons in a locomotive shed near the DB Museum in Nuremberg. Only the non-working, rolling replica of the Adler can be viewed in the museum itself, as well as an original wagon from Ludwigsbahn of 1835, that for conservation reasons cannot be run on tracks. On 26 April 2008 the replica ran again for the first time between Nuremberg and Fürth, accompanied by German members of parliament of various parties, a member of the DB management board and the Bavarian minister-president, Beckstein. In May more special trips were organised, followed by specials to Koblenz and Halle an der Saale during the summer.

References

Literature

• Heigl, Peter: Adler - Stationen einer Lokomotive im Laufe dreier Jahrhunderte Buch & Kunstverlag Oberpfalz, Amberg Juni 2009, ISBN: ISBN 978-3-935719-55-1.
• Hollingsworth, Brian und Arthur Cook: Das Handbuch der Lokomotiven. Bechtermünz/Weltbild, Augsburg 1996. ISBN 3-86047-138-4.
• Garratt, Colin und Max Wade-Matthews: Dampf. Eurobooks Cyprus Limited, Limassol 2000. ISBN 3-89815-076-3.
• Herring, Peter: Die Geschichte der Eisenbahn. Coventgarden bei Doring Kindersley, München 2001. ISBN 3-8310-9001-7.

External links

• There is an English-language discussion forum at Railways of Germany