Revell BR 43

Beginning with 1925 the Deutsche Reichsbahn started building unified, standardized locomotives. This meant that all the locomotives of the same class had exactly the same building parts, so if they broke down, they could easily be repaired anywhere throughout the country because all locomotive repair workshops had the exact same parts.

The first standard class built according to this principle was BR 01, which was an express locomotive. The second standard class was BR 43, a type of steam locomotive designed to pull heavy goods trains. Another class, BR 44, was built for the same purpose, but, opposed to BR 43, it was a three-cylinder design. The BR 43 proved to be more economical, but the BR 44 could operate at higher speeds, so only a total of 35 locomotives of type BR 43 were built. These were assembled between 1926 and 1928 by Henschel & Sohn and Schwartzkopff.

The BR 43 was a very strong locomotive. In fact BR 43 013 holds the record of being the German locomotive that pulled the heaviest train ever (5000 t). In 1960 the few remaining BR 43 class steam locomotives were modernized and fitted with more powerful boilers, so they could pull loads over twice as heavy as intended in the original design. However this quickly lead to frame damage and by 1968 they were all retired.

BR 43 001, seen in this beautiful H0 scale model, is a museum piece and can currently be found in the Saxon Railway Museum in Chemnitz. The model was manufactured by Revell and has item number 2170.

Facts:

ID: BR 43 001

Wheel arrangement: 2-10-0

Built: 1927

Builder: Henschel & Sohn

Top speed: 70 km/h

Power: 1383 kW

Gauge: Standard (1435 mm)

Driving wheel diameter: 1400 mm

Leading wheel diameter: 850 mm

Location: Chemnitz (Saxon Railway Museum)

Links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DRG_Class_43

http://www.revell.com/