page_title: DRB Class 41
section_title: DR Class 41 and DR Rekolok
hierarchical_section_title: DRB Class 41 / DR Class 41 and DR Rekolok
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Schrottlok in Stendal.
context_page_description: The German Class 41 steam locomotives were standard goods train engines operated by the Deutsche Reichsbahn and built from 1937–1941.
context_section_description: The DR too had difficulties with boilers made of St 47 K steel. The reduction of boiler overpressure from 20 to 16 bar had certainly slowed their susceptibility to damage, but could not prevent it entirely. Of the 112 locomotives recorded in the DR fleet in 1955, only 12 had already been equipped with a '1943 Type' replacement boiler and were therefore safe. Problems with the St 47 K boilers, however, increased massively. Repair welding did not produce the desired effect, but made the material even more brittle and the danger of cracks developing and boiler explosions was greater than before. And it was not just the Class 41 that was affected. Classes 03, 03.10 and 50, with boilers made of non-aging St 47 K, were also prone to damage. As a result of increasing difficulties the DR had to withdraw over 300 locomotives from service in 1956 which abruptly led to an enormous shortage of engines. The urgent call for action which then resulted led at last to the development and subsequent ordering of a new boiler (later called the 39E) that, with a few minor alterations, was also usable on locomotive classe 03, 03.10 and 39.
  Because the delivery of the new boilers kept being delayed, 21 Class 41 locomotives were simply fitted with replacement boilers to the old design by January 1959. Even the Meiningen repair shop made a complete copy of the old boiler for 41 075. Other damaged boilers were fully repaired and many parts replaced.
  Regardless of that, DR engineers worked on a "reconstruction programme for the recovery of the steam locomotive fleet." This envisaged, amongst other things, the modernisation of 102 Class 41 locomotives. The German term used for reconstruction was Rekonstrucktion or Reko for short, hence the subsequent designation of the locomotives as Rekolokomotiven or Rekoloks.
  Demarcation disputes, disagreements over the detail of the reconstruction programme and the continued non-delivery of the Reko boiler, delayed the start of work still further. Only the explosion of 03 1046's St47K boiler in 1958 at Wünsdorf led to pressure from the then transport minister, Erwin Kramer (1902–1979), to get started on the Reko programme.
  From 1959 onwards, 80 Class 41 locomotives were to be given the new 39E Reko boilers in the Zwickau and Karl Marx Stadt Reichsbahn repair shops (Reichsbahnausbesserungswerke or RAW).
  As part of the rebuild, IfS/DR mixer preheaters, pressure-compensating piston valves (Trofimoff valves) and new Stühren ash pans were installed. The wider outer firebox needed new front walls to the driver's cab, the front windows of which were equipped with demisting equipment. For the larger and heavier VMP 15-20 compounded mixer pump (Verbundmischpumpe) a new pump mount had to be built. This and the new mixer preheater apparatus required a different arrangement for the main air reservoir. The outside cylinders with a diameter of just 520 mm (20 in), originally designed for boiler pressures of 20 bar, were retained however. In the course of the rebuild, the brakes on the front carrying axle were removed.
  The 39E Reko boiler fitted to the engines is a combustion chamber boiler and can generate 15 tons of steam per hour, thanks to the improved ratio of radiative to tube heating area. This is considerably higher than, for example, the new DB boiler which generates only 13.3 tons of steam per hour. Fitted with this boiler, the engine was able to exceed the performance requirements that it originally had for the 20 bar boilers, in spite of its small cylinders.
  The engines rebuilt in this way are classified as Rekolokomotiven. Following their conversion, the DR gave all Class 41 locomotives the extra digit 1 under their 1970 renumbering scheme, so that e.g. number 41 122 became number 41 1122-5. In contrast to other classes, the Class 41 was not given a separate sub-class to distinguish Reko from non-Reko locomotives.
  Class 41 Rekoloks could be seen in regular train service until 1988. The second oil crisis in 1979/80, and its effect on the GDR's economy, granted quite a number of Class 41 engines a short return to o
caption: Class 41 for scrapping, sidelined in Stendal, (1979)
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