Product Features and Details
· Boiler and chassis in die-cast zinc
· Close coupling between locomotive and tender
· Doors open and close
· Extra mounted metal handrails
· Finest paintwork and printing
· Illuminated driver's cab
· Finest metal spoked wheels
· Smoke generator and sound decoder, either built in or as a retrofit option
· True-to epoch lighting, multipart lamp housing
· Train driver an fireman in driver's cab
· Perfectly replicated back boilerplate
· Filigree reversing gear
· Original colour replication: body black, wheelsets and chassis red
Shortly after the delivery of the new P 3/5H, there were profound upheavals in the German railway system. After the establishment of the DRG, a new numbering plan was developed for the locomotives of all German state railways. The third of them was ultimately implemented. The P 3/5H was thereafter assigned to the new BR 38 with serial numbers 401 - 480. These numbers were immediately emblazoned on the locomotives as riveted gunmetal digits on black signs. This was accompanied by a change in the colour scheme, but many were opposed to it, especially in Bavaria. There are factory photographs of the BR 185 showing the green colour scheme even after the addition of railway signs, from which it can be assumed that this paintwork lasted a while for the BR 384 as well. It wasn’t until the early 30s, then, that the first machines left the RAW (Reichsbahn repair shop) halls in Munich painted black and red. This accompanied a conversion to electric lighting, but there are also pictures that still show locomotives with gas lighting in the 1930s. Aside from the trial equipment of 38 433 and 38 470 with Friedmann injectors, there were virtually no noticeable design changes to the locomotives. In addition to local train service, they were also used in place of lightweight fast trains and express trains as well as in place of express freight trains and Leig units. In these services, one of the Bavarian milk cars was often drawn behind the locomotive on its way to the nearest dairy. The 38 401 was in use in Munich and Ingolstadt for the entire pre-war period, aside from an interlude in Freilassing. It was decommissioned in Munich in 1947, but it made another trip to Neu Ulm, presumably to be scrapped for spare parts. It was retired for good in 1951.
