Product Features and Details
The Model: The Fleischmann 415471 is an exquisite new model, this is the first Fleischmann tender locomotive with DCC Digital couplers. Model has super-detailling, -livery and -lettering. Model has interior details in driver's cab including a flickering LED orange light in the smoke box which is syncronized to the sound of shoveling coal . Like all Fleischmann locomotive it has Prototypical "daylight" between boiler and chassis and a fully functional, finely detailed Heusinger valve gear. Fleischmann did not leave out any details the new G8.1 model even has brake blocks between the wheels and extensive boiler detail.
- 5 Pole Can Motor with Flywheel
- Digital Couplers
- Metal Chassis
- LED Directional lighting
- Factory Installed DCC Sound Decoder
- NEM 651 Digital DCC Receptacle
- NEM 362 Coupler Pockets
- 2 Traction Tires
The Prototype: The Prussian G8.1 locomotives were built by Robert Garbe between 1913 and 1921, and formed the largest class of locomotives in Germany. The boiler of the G8.1 was larger than that of the G 8, and the loco was deliberately designed to be heavier, so that it could haul even the heaviest trains without sanding, due to its higher adhesive weight. The G8.1's were coupled with Prussian 3 T 16,5, 3 T 20 and 2'2' T 21,5 tenders. Because it had a high axle load, the G 8.1's were only able to be used on main lines. Besides hauling heavy goods traffic, it was later used for heavy pusher duties as well.
A total of 4,958 engines alone were made for the Prussian state railways and, later, the Deutsche Reichsbahn. The Imperial Railways in Alsace-Lorraine were given 137 and 10 went to the Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg Friedrich-Franz Railway, 50 to the German military railways in the First World War, 10 to the Gewerkschaft Deutscher Kaiser coal mine at Duisburg and 185 were sold abroad to Poland, Romania and Sweden).
In 1925 the Reichsbahn unified all the German State owned railroads and took over 3,121 Prussian G8.1 locomotives; they were re-classified as class 55.25. In the Second World War numerous locomotives from Poland and Lithuania were also designated as Class 55 engines. The engines taken over from Belgium were given the numbers 55 5666–5699. After 1945 the DR in East Germany added a further locomotive from Poland as 55 5898, and several from Belgium and France as 55 7251–7260 and 55 8170.
Between 1934 and 1941 a total of 691 G 8.1s were fitted with a leading axle in order to allow a higher top speed and to reduce the average axle load. The converted locomotives were re-designated as DRG Class 56.2–8.
More than 1,000 engines remained after the end of the Second World War. In 1968 the DR still had 150 locomotives, and the Deutsche Bundesbahn another 50, which they reclassified as Class 055 from 1968. The last G 8.1 with the DB, number 055 538-3, was taken out of service on 21 December 1972. Today one example still exists number 55 3345 (ex Cassel 5159) it was built in 1915 by Henschel and is today in the Bochum Dahlhausen Railway Museum.
