Talk:DRG Class E 19

Dear author of this page.

Thank you for writing the page.

In the text, you state: "The top speed had already been reduced to 140 km/h in the 1950s by a gearbox and motor conversion, to make them more suitable for their new main application on the Franconian Forest Railway."

This statement, however, is wrong. There had not been undertaken any changes of motors or gearboxes. The top speed quite simply had been reduced to 140km/h as an administrative act since there, anyway, was not a single line suitable for speeds exceeding 140km/h on the network of the newly established Deutsche Bundesbahn. Not any earlier than 1962, when the new Rheingold train was introduced - replacing the Rheingold, which had been operated as "F" train from 1951 on and through 1962 -, the maximum speed of any scheduled train in the FR Germany had been set to 160 km/h. A gear box and / or motor exchange or modification would, moreover, have been extremely costly and, specifically in case of the Siemens version engines, E 19 11 and 12, difficult. While the AEG version machines, E 19 01 and 02, were comparatively closely related to the E 18, the Siemens versions featured, among other specialties, tandem motors.

Rumors of "engine and gear box changes" appear frequently when the E 19 is being discussed by rail fans. However, as can be seen on the still existing two locomotives, one AEG and one Siemens mode, everything still is the genuine 1930s construction besides minor changes to the transformer of the Siemens versions, where Aluminum had been used for parts of the original wiring - since Al was a so called "Heimstoff", i.e. material, which did not have to be imported from abroad -, which, however, had caused the transformer to be unreliable. Also, there had, after the war, been used a variety of pantographs. During some time, the locomotives had been equipped with one pantograph, only, since there were not enough pantographs available for all locomotives due to war damage and those available had to be "evenly distributed" to keep as many engines as possible active.

Best wishes, Johannes Helm, Oslo, Norway — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.240.192.94 (talk) 21:03, 26 July 2016 (UTC)