Garden Railway Forum

Hello,

some weeks ago I talked with some friends about the different design principles between british and german tank locos.
One big point was: We know no german locos with a saddle tank, but many british.
I can imagine that the saddle tank isolates the boiler and the boiler preheat the water??? Side tanks facilitate the maintenance of the boiler and the various armatures on it?
What are the reasons? Does somebody knows more?

Regards

Michael

I think one large factor on this would be centre of gravity. German locomotives have much higher boilers than british ones as a general rule and to put more water ontop of this mass would raise the centre of gravity too much. Another part to consider is that as a general rule the british locomotive designers liked to keep appearences simple and apart from the odd westinghouse pump most of the plumbing are hidden in the cab or under the footplate, in german locomotive design you see alot of gubbins strapped onto the boiler and to wask a saddle tank ontop of these would be terrible for access and maintainence.

With saddle tank it essayer to maintain inside value gear with out a pit.

Yes that is also true - I know very few german locos with inside valve gear!

A saddle tank also gives you more direct weight over the wheels (in most cases.)

I believe well tanks are fairly common in Germany. I really like saddle tank locos, especially the quarry Hunslet locos.

I love saddle tanks!
I dont know why, they jsut look very appealing.

Maybe britain had many saddle tanks because it was easier to mass produce 1 large tank that would fit on multiple locos, than numerous side tanks different for each loco.

Mr. Bond of the DVLR:48637 wrote:Yes that is also true - I know very few german locos with inside valve gear!

I can think of one with inside coupling rods (stupid idea!).

Its in my garage  :roll: