The Württemberg Tssd was a class of German narrow gauge,

steam locomotive A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, oil or, rarely, wood) to heat water in the locomot ...

operated by the

Royal Württemberg State Railways The Royal Württemberg State Railways (''Königlich Württembergische Staats-Eisenbahnen'' or ''K.W.St.E.'') were the state railways of the Kingdom of Württemberg (from 1918 the ''People's State of Württemberg'') between 1843 and 1920. Please ...

History

They were initially deployed on the ''Öchsle'' Railway in 1899 between

Biberach an der Riß Biberach an der Riß ( Swabian: ''Bibra''), often referred to as simply Biberach (), is a town in southern Germany. It is the capital of Biberach district, in the Upper Swabia region of the German state (Land) of Baden-Württemberg. It is called ...

and

Ochsenhausen Ochsenhausen () is a city in the district of Biberach, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is located between the city of Biberach and Memmingen. it has a population of 8,916. The mayor of the town is Andreas Denzel. History For many centuries, ...

. In addition they worked the Federsee Railway between Schussenried and

Riedlingen Riedlingen () is a town in the district (''Kreis'') of Biberach, Baden-Württemberg, in the south-west of Germany. It is one of the destinations of the Upper Swabian Baroque Route. Riedlingen has approximately 10,000 inhabitants. Geography ...

, the

Zabergäu Railway The Zabergäu Railway (''Zabergäubahn'') was a spur line from the Franconia Railway. It ran for 20.3 km from Lauffen am Neckar to Leonbronn through an area known as the Zabergäu. Originally built with narrow gauge, it was converted to sta ...

between

Lauffen am Neckar Lauffen am Neckar () or simply Lauffen is a town in the district of Heilbronn, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is on the river Neckar, southwest of Heilbronn. The town is famous as the birthplace of the poet Friedrich Hölderlin and for its qu ...

and Leonbronn and the Bottwar Railway between

Marbach am Neckar Marbach am Neckar is a town about 20 kilometres north of Stuttgart. It belongs to the district of Ludwigsburg, the Stuttgart region and the European metropolitan region of Stuttgart. Marbach is known as the birthplace of Friedrich Schiller, to w ...

and

Heilbronn Heilbronn () is a List of cities and towns in Germany, city in northern Baden-Württemberg, Germany, surrounded by Heilbronn (district), Heilbronn District. With over 126,000 residents, it is the sixth-largest city in the state. From the late Mid ...

Süd. A total of nine units were delivered in three series of three engines in 1899, 1901 and 1904 with fleet numbers 41–49. They were initially classified as Tss locomotives and later as Tssd 41–49. T is the abbreviation for

tank locomotive A tank locomotive or tank engine is a steam locomotive that carries its water in one or more on-board water tanks, instead of a more traditional tender. Most tank engines also have bunkers (or fuel tanks) to hold fuel; in a tender-tank locom ...

, ss means that it is a

narrow gauge A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge narrower than standard . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and . Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with tighter curves, smaller structu ...

locomotive with a

rail gauge In rail transport, track gauge (in American English, alternatively track gage) is the distance between the two rails of a railway track. All vehicles on a rail network must have wheelsets that are compatible with the track gauge. Since many d ...

of , and the letter d, added later, was the abbreviation for

duplex locomotive A duplex locomotive is a steam locomotive that divides the driving force on its wheels by using two pairs of cylinders rigidly mounted to a single locomotive frame; it is not an articulated locomotive. The concept was first used in France in 18 ...

, because the steam was expanded twice, first in the high-pressure

cylinders A cylinder (from ) has traditionally been a three-dimensional solid, one of the most basic of curvilinear geometric shapes. In elementary geometry, it is considered a prism with a circle as its base. A cylinder may also be defined as an infini ...

and then in the low-pressure cylinders. Today duplex locomotives are described as

compound locomotive A compound locomotive is a steam locomotive which is powered by a compound engine, a type of steam engine where steam is expanded in two or more stages. The locomotive was only one application of compounding. Two and three stages were used in shi ...

s. The engines carried of water (the third series had larger water tanks with a capacity) and of

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when dea ...

. The maximal train load was on an incline of 1 in 40 (2.5%). All the engines were taken over by

Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft The ''Deutsche Reichsbahn'', also known as the German National Railway, the German State Railway, German Reich Railway, and the German Imperial Railway, was the German national railway system created after the end of World War I from the regiona ...

and given the numbers 99 631 to 99 639. After the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

four engines were still in service. They were retired as follows: *Number 99 638 – 26 October 1954 *Number 99 639 – 27 November 1956 *Number 99 637 – 25 March 1965 *Number 99 633 – 18 March 1969

Preserved locomotives

Two locomotives, numbers 99 633 and 99 637 have been preserved. Locomotive 99 633 was under the ownership of the

German Railway History Company The German Railway History Company (''Deutsche Gesellschaft für Eisenbahngeschichte'') or DGEG is a society concerned with the history of the railways. The objectives of the society are: * to generate and maintain interest and understanding for th ...

(''DGEG'') and was loaned to the ''Öchsle Schmalspurbahn'' (Öchsle Narrow-Gauge Railway) and displayed in the Ochsenhausen shed, its original home. In 2007 the society bought it outright. Since the very first transmission of the SWR television programme,

Eisenbahn-Romantik Eisenbahn-Romantik (literally: "railway romance") is a German television programme, broadcast by SWR. It portrays railway-related reports, whose content covers modern railway systems, museum railways and their facilities as well as items on mode ...

, it has featured in the introduction and the programme's logo. Number 99 637 is on display as a monument at the former station forecourt in

Bad Buchau Bad Buchau () (formerly Buchau; Swabian: ''Buacha'') is a small town in the district of Biberach, Baden-Württemberg, Germany with about 4,000 inhabitants. It is situated near Lake Federsee, which is separated from the town by a wide reed belt. ...

, its last home station.

References

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Wurttemberg Tssd Mallet locomotives Tssd 0-4-4-0T locomotives 750 mm gauge locomotives Narrow gauge steam locomotives of Germany Esslingen locomotives B′B n4vt locomotives

History

Preserved locomotives

See also

References