Sueddeutsches Eisenbahnmuseum Heilbronn

23 105 and 80 014 inside the roundhouse

The Sueddeutsches Eisenbahnmuseum in Heilbronn (South Germany Railway Museum, SEH) is only a 45-minute drive away from my home town, yet I've never been there. They are located in the old roundhouse of the Heilbronn maintenance facility (Betriebswerk, BW). There is a varied collection of steam locomotives ranging from small B-couplers over the class 80 and class 86 to fast passenger train locomotives like class 01 and class 23, as well as two class 44 heavy freight steam engines. There are also several Diesel locomotives. Most of the steamers are not currently operational.

Rear wall of the roundhouse. The tender of 01 173 is on the right.

The roundhouse breathes the atmosphere of bygone times.

P8  38 3199

Obviously the pride and joy of the club is the P8 steam locomotive 38 3199 in a livery that's reasonably close to the look it had when it was built in 1921. We got extraordinarily lucky today that there was lots of activity at the roundhouse. Tomorrow, the locomotive will pull a special steam train around Heilbronn and we got to observe heating the locomotive, as well as a Kof II putting together the cars for the special train.

Koef II 4714 on the turntable with 38 3199 in the foreground

Prepping 38 3199 for the special train tomorrow.

The amount of work to get a steam locomotive operational for a steam excursion is impressive. Not only does it take 6-8 hours to heat the boiler to operating pressure, but the locomotive gets polished, lubed and oiled with lots of care and love. Then it sits overnight with a small fire to keep the boiler pressurized. There are people around overnight to watch that everything is fine.

The Koef II is a very funky little machine that sits very low on the rails. Yet it's powerful enough to be useful for switching duties.

Koef II 4714 on the turntable 

Koef II transmission detail. Yes, this locomotive uses a roller chain linkage between transmission and the axles. 

Interior of 0010Meh. This was part of the set of a movie about Tolstoi's last year of life

When I saw this railbus ("Schienenbus") I had an immediate flash back:
Just after I was done with taking photos in Fichtental on Thursday and had the camera packed away, I was surprised by a 4-car railbus train coming through the station with prominent "Wir wollen Wulle" signs on the side. Turns out this was the historic rail bus set from the Krebsbachtalbahn normally operating between Neckarbischofsheim and Hueffingen. One of the railbus cars apparently had a problem near Heilbronn and was set out at SEH, while the rest of the units continued their journey.