Class V 200 Diesel Locomotive

The new German Federal Railroad was intensively involved in the Fifties with replacing costly steam operation with other types of motive power. In the meantime, the high cost of comprehensive electrification would have broken the budgets of that time. Attention was thus also paid to powerful diesel-powered units for important express train service. The required technology was already available for smaller and medium weight diesel locomotives. In the meantime, the decision was taken for low maintenance and quiet running articulated drive shaft technology for powerful motorized units. In this connection Daimler-Benz, MAN, and Maybach in cooperation with the German Federal Railroad Central Office in Munich had come up with a new 12-cylinder power plant with 1,100 horsepower performance. In addition, Maybach and Voith developed a new fluid drive. The successful V 200.0 locomotive was developed from these progressive components at Krauss-Maffei under the participation of most of the West German locomotive builders. The two power plants of the V 200.0 put out 2,200 horsepower together with a service weight of about 78 metric tons. A comparatively powerful steam locomotive with a tender would have tipped the scales at about 160 metric tons. The proof of the extraordinarily high reliability and practicality of these locomotive icons was that half a century after their purchase there are still several units currently in service abroad and on privately owned railroads.