TKt1

TKt1-63 (Hohenzollern 3496/1916), on display at the Railway Stock Heritage Park in Chabówka; photo taken on April 13, 2004

T14 side drawing by M.Kratochvil (TB vol.2)

Another picture of the TKt1-63, taken on July 29, 2006.

Prussian class T14 tank locomotive was designed by Union Gießerei of Königsberg in 1914, against a requirement for a universal mixed traffic engine. It was, however, not the first machine to bear this service designation: it was preceded by a special, advanced three-cylinder passenger tank engine for Berliner Stadtbahn, intended to supplant class T12, of which only one was built (Berlin 8101, later Breslau 8508). Second T14 fared much better. Prototype appeared shortly before WWI and this type soon proved very useful, also for passenger traffic, so until 1919 as many as 587 examples were built by Union, Henschel, Hohenzollern and Hanomag for KPEV and Alsace-Lorraine railways, the latter receiving forty between 1915 and 1917. Furthermore, two very similar machines were built by Hanomag in 1925 and 1926 for the private Farge – Vegesack railway; later they were also incorporated into class T14, bringing the grand total to 589 examples. T14s were robust and strong, capable of hauling even a 2300-tonne draft, but had several shortcomings, including uneven weight distribution: load axle varied from 14.2 to 17.3 tonnes and front idle axle took the highest load, which could not contribute to good running qualities. According to some reports, motion gear was prone to failures.

After WWI, most T14s remained in Germany; DRG had 408 engines, re-designated class 93. Many went to Belgium (56, SNCB class 97) and France (65, apart from those used by Alsace-Lorraine railways – included into SNCF class 141TA together with two other types). Poland received 26 examples, classed TKt1; they were assigned service numbers TKt1-1 through 22 and TKt1-1Dz through 4Dz (Dz for ‘Danzig’ – these machines served in Gdańsk). According to official records, one T14¹ (ex Halle 8509, Union 2509/1919) was erroneously incorporated into this class as TKt1-23. Initially most were based around Poznań and Gdańsk and used in local freight and suburban traffic, as well as for switching. In early 1930s, however, many were transferred to southern Poland. They proved useful on some mountain lines, but were too weak for the principal Kraków-Zakopane line (gradients up to 24‰), on which they were later supplanted by more powerful OKz32s.

After September 1939, wartime fortunes of TKt1s were quite complex. Fourteen were evacuated to Lwów, to fall into Soviet hands. Four were taken over by Lithuanian authorities and impressed into LG (Lietuvos Gelezinkeliali) service as 501 – 504, to be taken over by the Soviets a few months later. After the assault on the USSR in 1941, three TKt1s were captured by the Germans and impressed into DRG service. In all, fifteen TKt1s remained in the Soviet Union and not a single engine was ever returned. T14s taken as war booty, converted to 1524 mm track and impressed into Soviet service were classed Tъ (in Russian alphabet, ъ is a phonetic symbol with no Latin equivalent), but this designation referred also to T14¹s, DRG class 93^5-12, in fact developed from T14. In all, Soviet class Tъ numbered 124 engines. They were used mainly for switching, many went to industry. It is not clear whether this Soviet class included also ex-PKP examples.

After the war, class 93 locomotives were scattered between many countries: Germany, Belgium, France, Luxembourg (impressed into CFL as class 43), Czechoslovakia and Austria. Deutsche Bundesbahn in West Germany had over 138 engines of this type (data for 1950); last two of them were withdrawn in September 1960. In East Germany, DR had over 160 former T14s, which survived in service until 1972. PKP took 87 engines, but only eight of them were pre-war Polish ones. This number includes pre-war TKt1-3Dz (Union 2448/1918, KPEV Danzig 8501, DRG 93 420) and TKt1-19 (Union 2415/1918, KPEV Posen 8517, DRG 93 426) that briefly served in Czechoslovakia, but most probably were not given ČSD numbers and were returned in 1947 to become TKt1-82 and TKt1-83, respectively. Two engines of this type were erroneously included into the TKt2 class (which corresponded to KPEV T14¹), so post-war PKP class TKt1 ‘officially’ numbered 85 examples. Several of these were, however, damaged and nine were never restored in service, to be written off and scrapped between 1949 and 1952.

After the war, most TKt1s were based in Upper Silesia; several served on mountain lines in southern Poland, just like before 1939, but soon were replaced by superior TKt48s. In the meantime, old engine was found very useful in industrial service. Between 1953 and 1970, as many as 49 examples were transferred to various industrial plants: collieries, foundries, cement plants, power stations and many others. Early 70s, however, witnessed the end of most TKt1s, of which many were already almost sixty years old. Last example in the PKP service, TKt1-63 (Hohenzollern 3496/1916, KPEV Berlin 8589, DRG 93 108) was written off in January 1972 and, after over twenty years of oblivion, managed to find its way to the Chabówka railway stock heritage park, where it can today be seen on static display as the sole remaining machine of this type in Poland. With industrial operators, several examples remained in service for a few years more. TKt1-29 (Union 2272/1916, KPEV Bromberg 8502, DRG 93 176), converted to oil firing, was withdrawn in March 1981 and TKt1-51 (Union 2351/1917, KPEV Magdeburg 8509, DRG 93 265) was finally withdrawn after almost 64 years in service, in May 1981. Both these record-breakers were, unfortunately, scrapped.

Apart from TKt1-63, only one engine of this type has survived until today, namely DRG 93 230 (Union 2315/1917, KPEV Erfurt 8526), withdrawn in 1968, on display in Dresden.

Main technical data

No.	Parameter	Unit	Value
1.	Years of manufacture	-	1914 – 1919^4)
2.	Total built / used in Poland	-	587 + 2^1)/ 26^2) – 87^3)
3.	Tender class	-	-
4.	Axle arrangement	-	1-4-1
5.	Design maximum speed	km/h	65
6.	Cylinder bore	mm	2 X 600
7.	Piston stroke	mm	660
8.	Engine rating	kW/hp	736 / 1000
9.	Tractive effort	kG	12 100
10.	Boiler pressure	MPa	1.22
11.	Grate dimensions	m X m	2.61 X 0.98
12.	Firebox heating surface	m^2	13.89
13.	Distance between tube plates	mm	4 700
14.	Number of flue tubes	-	111
15.	Heating surface of flue tubes	m^2	65.0
16.	Number of smoke tubes	-	26
17.	Heating surface of smoke tubes	m^2	47.97
18.	Evaporating surface, total	m^2	126.86
19.	Superheater heating surface	m^2	50.28
20.	Diameter of drivers	mm	1350
21.	Diameter of idlers front/rear	mm	1000 / 1000
22.	Total weight, empty	kg	77 050
23.	Total weight, working order	kg	97 600
24.	Weight on drivers, working order	kg	63 400
25.	Weight with tender, empty	kg	-
26.	Weight with tender, working order	kg	-
27.	Maximum axle load	T	17.3
28.	Axle base (with tender)	mm	9 300
29.	Overall length (with tender)	mm	13 800
30.	Brake type	-	Knorr

1) Class T14 included also two examples built for the Farge – Vegesack private railway between 1925 and 1926.

2) After WWI class TKt1 included also one T14¹.

3) Two examples erroneously included into class TKt2.

4) Last two machines for the private railway built between 1925 and 1926.

References and acknowledgments

Detailed description can be found in a monograph article by Paweł Terczyński in SK vol.12/2004. Concise description can be found in TB vol.2. Information on individual examples has been taken from the impressive Ingo Hütter’s locomotive database (available at www.lokomotive.de).