The railways faced with increased traffic in the war. MÁV also participated in the military transports. Kálmán Kandó, who returned to Hungary, was appointed to Transport Expert Officer. He made calculations about the railway's coal supply and concluded that the transport system is very vulnerable: the coal production increase was not proportional with the demands and in a case when the enemy occupies only one coalfield, the railway transport could be paralysed. He demanded a fast electrification as the electric locomotives require less than half the amount of coal for the same transport results, than the steamers. His ideas could only get exploited after the war.
Due to the serious copper shortage the locomotives before and during WW1 were built with all-steel Brotan-Defner boilers. Already the Class 601 Mallet was constructed this way, but all new types were designed with this feature. Older locomotive types, like the Class 324, 375 and 376 were redesigned with Brotan boiler, and some other types were equipped with this boiler at bigger overhauls. Most of these locomotives were rebuilt with a normal boiler after the war, but those types only designed with steel boiler, used this type of boiler in their entire lifetime. These were the Classes 342 (1914), 442 (1917) and 328 (1919).
As the Hungarian manufacturers were overloaded by orders and repair works, and possessed limited material resources, a number of locomotives of the Classes 342 and 328 were built by Henschel/Germany using Hungarian plans.
The Class
328
was a successor of the light ten-wheeler, Class 327. The main changes, except
for the Brotan boiler, included a shorter wheelbase, in order to accommodate
smaller turntables. The relatively large Brotan firebox however occupied
too much place inside the cab, and these engines were rather uncomfortable
to drive.
The
Class 342 was a Prairie tank locomotive
for commuter traffic, an upsized version of the Class 375. The two prototypes
were still built with copper firebox on 1913, but during the WW1 all other
engines were built with a redesigned Brotan boiler. As the Brotan boiler's
heating surface was smaller than those of the original boiler, these engines
had a tendency for steam shortage.
The
Class 442, appeared in 1917, was a larger
brother of the Class 342, a 2-8-2T Mikado. It was designed for performing
commuter duties on the Budapest-Gödöllö line, where there
are steeper sections available.
Two other locomotive types were designed during the war for mountain lines, but they weren't built, as after WW1 Hungary lost most its mountain lines.
Back to the Hungarian Railways' History Main Page
Back to the Scratchbuilding Main
Page
This page was updated last time on 24th September 1998
© János Erö
