CM-35010 · Breuer Typ IV Locomotive

History of the Breuer IV

At the beginning of the XXth century, during the previous years before the outbreak of the WWI, it became evident all across Europe, the need of finding an economic alternative to the steam locomotives carrying out the tasks related to manouvring and towing on wagons, which were usual to be done in every railway station and industrial areas.

In 1913, the Breuver company designs a solution consisting in a small and doble-axis tractor which is named as Type TZP I. The idea behind this design was to provide any wagon or carriage the ability to become a self-propelled vehicle. For this purpose, the tractor was approached to the target carriage until one of its axis was under the bumpers. After this, both were linked to each other, and later to this, a hidraulick jack was released upwards, lifting the cargo platform up to 200 mm. As consecuence the extra weight supported by the tractor, it gained friction enough and traction power to tow the wagon.

Despite this was a tiny vehicle, the original design of type I housed an engine able to tow up to 80 tonnes. Power more than required to carry out the tasks it had been created for. The model was patented that year, and later on, in 1914, the company enjoys the chance to make a demostrative test of the model to the Prussian Minister for Relief and Public works. The Minisiter finds in the vehicle the cheap (each unit costed around 6.000 RM) and long waited solution to replace the steam machines attending the auxiliary tasks, and the Breuer company, is commisioned to manufacture the firsts orders of the model.

Within the next years, Breuer made some modifications and improvements on the original design, from which versions type II, III, IV and V were released. (The type V was built years later the WWII was ended.) This locomotive was also manufactured under license by other european companies seeing service in different countries such as, Austria, Switzerland, Holland, Norway, Czechoslovakia, France, Spain, Sweden, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Romania, Soviet Union, Turkey Finland, Italy, Denmark, Uruguay and Egypt.

It was common for all the licensed manufactures to carry out improvements and variations according to their own needs. As the result, a full range of different machines based on the same model were produced. By 1955, the manufacturing of the Breuer locomotive serie was ceased, with a total estimated production of more than one thousand units built in a 40 years period.

During the World War Two, several machines under service in Denmark were fitted to use wood as fuel due to the shortage of diesel. However, the entries in the logs prove that from 1929 to 1943, most of the 120 vehicles built belonged to the class IV.

Curiously, despite the Breuer broadly matched the requeriments of the Deutsche Reichsbahn for small locomotives under the denomination “DR – Kleinlokomotive Leistungsgruppe I” (or Small locomotive performance group I) none of them was included in their assets. It was later went many units became part of the fleet, as the result of those vehicles seized in countries occupied by the nazis, as well as those belonging to private railway companies such as the Eutin Lübecker Eisenbahn (ELE) and the Kreis Oldenburger Bahn (KOE) operating in Germany and which were laterly taken over by the Regime and embedded into the national railway network program which took place from 1938 to 1943. The year when the fate of war turned over, in favor of allies, and the resources for Germans became more and more limited.

Anyhow, there is a huge lack of data regarding the exact number and destination of the Breuer locomotives built along the war, as the identification numbers given by the fabricators don’t necessary match the plaque number those machine received when entering into service. Beside this, there is no further evidence of logs including all the vehicles built, as according to the existing entries in 1940 the first model known was numbered as 2159, being sent to powerplant in Austria, and the following one with number 2187, delivered to a cement factory in southwastern Germany. There is no trace about the destination of the locomotives built between both of these. Even more, this gap of info should also include all those machines built under license by other manufacturers about which service life we are yet clueless.

Regarding the colour they were painted in, the existing examples in museums and side-tracks depict a full range of tunes and schemes including reds, blues, yellows, greens, greys, whites, oranges… The main reason for this lack of uniformity was that most of the machines were ordered and purchases by privates companies and industrial plants. Therefore, they were not tied from the begining to the DR color directives. It is possible however, that any of these machines were re-painted in black or dark grey for them to show the official colours, though is mostly feasible that they preserved their original colour, as witnessed by vast number of models belonging to those years which can be seen in recent times pictures.

After the end of the war, the surviving units coming from the extincted DR went under the control the DDR, becaming part of the DB rolling park until they were definitely retired by the beginning of the 70’s. Those machines which remained beyond the control of the Reich, kept on service in conutries such as Switzerland and Finland as part of their national railway companies until the were also retired.

The last Breuer known to be operative, served until 1990.

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Badoni. The Italian Breuer

The Breuer became a very popular locomotive in Italy, where it was built under license by two companies. The first of them was the OCM (Officine di Costamasnaga) from 1929 to 1932, and laterly by ABL (Antonio Badoni, in Lecco) from 1932 until 1962, counting a total of 507 machines manufactured.
The Badoni was also nicknamed as “The Sardine Can” due to the shape and narrowness of the cabin. One of its main features of the models by Badoni was that driver’s room could be splitted out in two parts which were attached to each other by bolts. Such a feature allowed it to be diassambled and transported from place to place easily.

This reason, together with its small size and towing power, brought the attraction of the Navy, the Air Force and the Italian Army, which used it widely to cover towing and logistics labours.

By the begining of the summer in 1942, already started the World War Two, a total of 40 Badoni were sent to Libia with the purpose of working in the construction of the railway from Tripoli to Bengasi. However 8 of them were lost when the ship where they were freighted was sunk by a British bomber.

Regarding the other surviving machines, there are plenty of pictorical records about their use in Egypt by the areas of Tobruk and El Alamein. Some other locations known where the Badoni were seen during the war were the line from Tripoli to Zuara, Gheddala, Corradini, Marsa Matruch and Agheila – Marada, a famous and known area where Rommel and Montgomery armies fought from the 11th to 18th of December 1942, resulting in victory for the allies forces.

The Badoni where equipped with diesel or nafta engines provided by FIAT featuring a chain transmission with a four-speed gears box able to reach a maxium speed of 30 to 40 kms. Poor but more than enought for the labours the were intended for.

The same as happened with the Breuer locomotives, the Badoni where also adquired broadly by the Italian Railway Service (Ferrocarriles dello Stato) as well as by private companies which used them in labours of towing of wagons and cargo platforms in industrial areas and sidetracks where it is common nowadays to find any vehicles out of service left apart.

 

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Other countries

Several other companies in Europe were licensed to build their own versions of the Breuer including modifications of its basic desing according to their needs. One of the most famous ones was Universa in Prague which from 1931, built several machines for the Czech Railway Company (ČSD – Československé státní dráhy) under the so-called T-200.00 serie. These machines were deployed in Prague, Děčín and Kořenov. However they didn’t match the requirements needed and were laterly sold to private companies.

It is well known that from those machines built for the ČSD, the T-200-001 was sold in 1938 to a metallurgical company in Vitkovice, being transferred in 1945 to Ústí nad Labem. Regarding the model numbered as 002, it was sold in 1946 to an industrial company where served until 1973. Later to this, the machine was retired and taken to a museum for permanent exhibition.

It is very plausible that some of these tractors built by Universa were seized by the Deutsche Reichsbahn, as after the Czches lost the Sudeten, the ČSD was forced to yield vehicles, equipment and railway facilities to Germany. The list included 877 locomotives, 300 assorted wagons, 117 expresso trains, 2.160 carriage wagons, and 23.500 cargo wagons.

From March of 1939, with the rise of the protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, the ČSD was divided in two. One of the resulting entities called the ČSD-BMB while was officially independent, was under the directives of the Deutsche Reichsbahn.

In Denmark the Breuers were produced by Pedershaab, and as war went by and, some of them were refitted to work with gasogeno in order to deal with the fuel shortage. In Finland, the Breuers were built by Tampella from 1929 to 1959 while Gebus manufacturer did the same in Switzerland from 1957.

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Assembly

Follow the instruction depicted in this brief have a step by step assembly guide in order to build your model. Download the assembly here.