Richard Paul Wagner
Encyclopedia
Deutsche Reichsbahn
Deutsche Reichsbahn was the name of the following two companies:* Deutsche Reichsbahn, the German Imperial Railways during the Weimar Republic, the Third Reich and the immediate aftermath...
in Germany from its inception in 1922 to 1942.. He held the rank of Reichsbahnoberrat.
Richard Wagner was born in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
on 25 August 1882 and studied at the Charlottenburg Technical High School there from 1901 to 1906. In 1920 he took over as head of the Berlin-Grunewald Locomotive Testing Office
Lokomotiv-Versuchsamt Grunewald
The Lokomotiv-Versuchsamt Grunewald or LVA was a facility established from 1920 to 1945 at Berlin-Grunewald in Germany that conducted trials on railway vehicles...
. In 1922 he was on the Enger Committee for the Standardisation of Locomotives and was employed by the Reichsbahn Central Office. In 1923 he took over the locomotive section within the Central Office.
With the development of standard steam locomotives (the so-called Einheitsdampflokomotive
Einheitsdampflokomotive
The German term Einheitsdampflokomotive, sometimes shortened to Einheitslokomotive or Einheitslok, means standard steam locomotive and refers to the steam engines built in Germany after 1925 under the direction of the Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft...
n) for the Deutsche Reichsbahn he was able to carry through his proposals for rationalising the construction and operation of steam locomotives. These were: to have the fewest possible locomotive classes, to avoid sub-classes and special classes, to have as many interchangeable parts
Interchangeable parts
Interchangeable parts are parts that are, for practical purposes, identical. They are made to specifications that ensure that they are so nearly identical that they will fit into any device of the same type. One such part can freely replace another, without any custom fitting...
as possible between different classes, even after undergoing repairs, and to produce components to a high degree of precision. As a result, in his time, a programme of locomotive classes was set up in the Standardisation Office of the Reichsbahn and with the manufacturers. On 1 June 1942 he retired, his successor being Friedrich Witte.
Wagner was influenced by his experiences with railway regiments in the First World War (locomotives frequently being out of service, problems with the procurement of spare parts, the maintenance of a large number of different classes of state railway (Länderbahn) locomotives, the lack of standardisation of components, and the need for simple and maintenance-friendly designs) and that led him to press for, sometimes very successful, but also at times rather stifling ideas about the concept of the Einheitslokomotiven. For example, Wagner was vehemently against fuel-saving high performance boilers and four-cylinder compound engines, that had been very successful in the German state railways (e.g. the Bavarian S 3/6
Bavarian S 3/6
The Class S 3/6 steam locomotives of the Royal Bavarian State Railways were express train locomotives with a 4-6-2 Pacific or 2'C1' wheel arrangement....
) or in other countries (e.g. the French designs of Chapelon
André Chapelon
André Chapelon was a noted French mechanical engineer and designer of advanced steam locomotives. Engineer of Ecole Centrale Paris, he was one of very few locomotive designers who brought a rigorous scientific method to their design, and he sought to apply up-to-date knowledge and theories in...
), albeit more costly to maintain.
The programme of locomotive classes for the standard steam engines that Wagner helped to create could initially only be instigated on a small scale by the Reichsbahn, both for economic reasons and due to delays in upgrading railway routes to take the higher axle load of 20 tonnes. In many cases, just one or two trial locomotives of a given class were built or only small or pre-production runs delivered. Not until the onset of the German Reich's preparations for war were the 2-10-0 goods train locomotives from the standardisation programme, and the wartime locomotive (Kriegslokomotive
Kriegslokomotive
Kriegslokomotiven were German 'war locomotives', produced in large numbers during the Second World War, whose construction was tailored to the economic circumstances of wartime Germany, such as shortages of materials, goods transportation , ease of maintenance under difficult conditions, resistance...
n) derived from it, built in large quantities.
Today the name Wagner is particularly well-known in railway circles for the standard smoke deflectors
Smoke deflectors
Smoke deflectors are vertical plates attached to the front of a steam locomotive on each side of the smokebox. They are designed to lift smoke away from the locomotive at speed so that the driver has better visibility unimpaired by drifting smoke....
on Reichsbahn steam locomotive
Steam locomotive
A steam locomotive is a railway locomotive that produces its power through a steam engine. These locomotives are fueled by burning some combustible material, usually coal, wood or oil, to produce steam in a boiler, which drives the steam engine...
s which bear his name; but this locomotive feature represents only a small part of his overall influence.
In 1931 he was given an honorary doctorate by the Technical High School in Aachen
Aachen
Aachen has historically been a spa town in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Aachen was a favoured residence of Charlemagne, and the place of coronation of the Kings of Germany. Geographically, Aachen is the westernmost town of Germany, located along its borders with Belgium and the Netherlands, ...
and in 1936 a gold medal of service from the Society of British Locomotive Engineers.
He died on 14 February 1953 at Velburg
Velburg
Velburg is a town in the district of Neumarkt in Bavaria, Germany. It is situated 17 km southeast of Neumarkt in der Oberpfalz, and 39 km northwest of Regensburg....
in the Upper Palatinate
Upper Palatinate
The Upper Palatinate is one of the seven administrative regions of Bavaria, Germany, located in the east of Bavaria.- History :The region took its name first in the early 16th century, because it was by the Treaty of Pavia one of the main portions of the territory of the Wittelsbach Elector...
region of Bavaria
Bavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
.
External links
- There is a relevant English-language forum at Railways of Germany