BlueBrixx Diesel Locomotive V36 Set 102937

BlueBrixx's Diesel Locomotive V36 is built from 323 blocks in a grey and black livery, with a working coupling. Designed by Alex, released 2019.

The locomotive that outlasted three countries

The V36 was ordered by the Wehrmacht. It was designed in the late 1930s as a standard heavy shunting locomotive for military depots and ports — simple, rugged, and buildable by several manufacturers at once.

What happened afterwards is what makes it interesting. When the war ended the survivors were scattered across occupied Germany and beyond, and everybody who found one kept it, because a working shunting locomotive in 1946 was worth having regardless of who had ordered it.

They went into service with the Bundesbahn in the west and the Reichsbahn in the east, with the French and Soviet occupation railways, with industrial works, ports, steelworks and private lines. Some ended up in Norway, Poland and Yugoslavia.

The Bundesbahn ran them until 1982. A few worked in industry into the 1990s, and a considerable number survive on heritage railways — an unglamorous machine that was still doing its job half a century after the state that ordered it had ceased to exist.

Why diesel for shunting first

Diesel traction reached shunting yards long before it reached main lines, and the reason is the duty cycle.

A steam locomotive must be lit hours before it is needed and consumes coal and water while standing. A shunter spends most of its shift stationary, waiting. Diesel starts on demand, idles for almost nothing, and needs one man rather than two.

That arithmetic was compelling in a yard decades before anyone could build a diesel powerful enough to haul an express.

In the BlueBrixx range

Sets 101001 (V200), 102531 and 102532 (BR 92), 102921 (Big Boy) and 104004 (US Shunting Locomotive) are the other locomotives. Sets 101043, 102535 and 102788 are the station buildings this would work among.

Specifications

Pieces: 323 · Designer: Alex · Working coupling