État 230 (ex Saxon XII H2)

[britishcolumbian]

I have an État 230 (230-976, ex DRG BR38.2) from Beckmann in 1:120, and got to thinking about it... can anyone shed light on where these operated, and what they did? There's no guarantee I'll do anything, but got to thinking perhaps I can do a French module/vignette suitable for it...

[EddieB]

Attractive locomotives, twenty-five going to État after the Armistice, with both high and low running-plate variants.  According to "Les Locomotives à Vapeur du Réseau de l'État" (Collardey) they were based mainly at Rennes for express passenger and parcels trains (pour tirer sur l'étoile des trains de voyageurs et messageries) on the routes to Le Mans, Saint-Malo, Saint-Brieuc, Redon and Châteaubriant.

 

All were still in service in 1938, becoming SNCF nos. 3-230 960-84.  During WW2, fifteen were removed back to Germany (including the prototype of your model), finding themselves in the DDR after the war.

[britishcolumbian]

Thanks for that info, it gives me some leads to follow up on - I know very little about French railways beyond the superficial, and that Kandó Kálmán designed an electric locomotive for PO (which I'd love to build a model of one day...).

 

They really are a pretty locomotive... but express trains might not be all that suited for a vignette-type layout - but just putting together (i.e. building) an accurate train for the locomotive to pull at club meetings/shows might be a worthwhile way to showcase what is actually quite a beautiful model, too.

 

Here's a pic of it just after I got it (just before putting everything in storage before coming to Ghana), in front of the four SNCF wine barrel wagons I have, they're old BTTB stock. Which don't really fit other than that they're also French...

[Gordonwis]

This model comes into the category of 'very tangentially French' railway models in various scales produced by German manufacturers - who in order to say they had produced something French issued repaints of German prototypes - such models are generally referred to as 'Francisé /  'Frenchified'.

 

My personal categorisation for these is as follows:  

1) very / incredibly tangential 🤣 (ie spent little of very little time in France or were early withdrawals)

2) 'worth the effort'  - ie prototypes that spent an extended period running in France and /or survived into 'modern SNCF era

 

Personally I have never invested in a model in category 1 (I work in N scale) but I have a collection of stuff in category 2

 

Category 1 includes the type under discussion here, plus things like 

 

Category 2 includes much better known SNCF classes including 150X (DRG 44), 150Y (DRG 52),  040D (DRG 55), 1-230F (ie Est region 230F - Prussian P8, DRG 38). The 040D is particularly good as the last examples were still at Calais after steam had ended in the UK!

Edited April 7 by Gordonwis

[Gordonwis]

On 04/04/2024 at 20:11, EddieB said:

 

All were still in service in 1938, becoming SNCF nos. 3-230 960-84.  

 

This should read 3-230E 960-84  (all SNCF locos have a letter suffix of some kind)

[britishcolumbian]

57 minutes ago, Gordonwis said:

This model comes into the category of 'very tangentially French' railway models in various scales produced by German manufacturers - who in order to say they had produced something French issued repaints of German prototypes - such models are generally referred to as 'Francisé /  'Frenchified'.

I think Beckmann's reasons for producing this had little to do with wanting to be able to say they made something French, and more for the sake of having something to sell to the Sammler who buy one of everything... :P

 

59 minutes ago, Gordonwis said:

My personal categorisation for these is as follows:  

1) very / incredibly tangential 🤣 (ie spent little of very little time in France or were early withdrawals)

2) 'worth the effort'  - ie prototypes that spent an extended period running in France and /or survived into 'modern SNCF era

 

Personally I have never invested in a model in category 1 (I work in N scale) but I have a collection of stuff in category 2

 

Category 1 includes the type under discussion here, plus things like 

Hm, does 25 units running for 20+ years on French rails count as "incredibly tangential"? Okay, perhaps unknown on most of the network, but from what I'm gathering seems they were regulars in pre-war Brittany. And, if only 15 were taken back to Germany during the war, that should mean ten continued on with SNCF after the war, too?

 

I didn't pay for it, though - I've never invested in a French model other than two coaches to build a mid-90s Orient Express consist; I got this as part of an "inheritance" - a member of our local TT club passed away, and we got to have his trains. This was one of the pieces I chose, because it's pretty and it's unique.

 

1 hour ago, Gordonwis said:

Category 2 includes much better known SNCF classes including 150X (DRG 44), 150Y (DRG 52),  040D (DRG 55), 1-230F (ie Est region 230F - Prussian P8, DRG 38).

Off the top of my head, I know the 150Y has been done in TT, 90% sure the 1-230F has been done, and I *think* the 150X has been done by a small producer ("Kleinserienhersteller").

[EddieB]

11 hours ago, Gordonwis said:

This should read 3-230E 960-84  (all SNCF locos have a letter suffix of some kind)

A case of quoting from the book referenced without cross-checking (although a photo caption includes the suffix letter as the loco pictured would become)!

 

Interestingly it appears that the fifteen locos taken back to Germany were regarded as "war prizes" and still belonging to France; in 1953 they were allocated SNCF book entry numbers in the series 1-230.E.360+ (i.e. 600 below their previous running number).

[Gordonwis]

23 hours ago, britishcolumbian said:

Hm, does 25 units running for 20+ years on French rails count as "incredibly tangential"? Okay, perhaps unknown on most of the network, but from what I'm gathering seems they were regulars in pre-war Brittany. And, if only 15 were taken back to Germany during the war, that should mean ten continued on with SNCF after the war, too?

 

 

Another source suggests they only ran regularly for about 16 years and in a limited area, which is quite limited usage IMHO.

 

[britishcolumbian]

6 hours ago, Gordonwis said:

 

Another source suggests they only ran regularly for about 16 years and in a limited area, which is quite limited usage IMHO.

 

Well, either way, the locomotive existed and was used in France, the model exists, I have the model, and I might want to do something with it/centred on it, so it's the information about its service that I'm after. The TGV may be iconic, but it's incredibly tangential to steam operations in Brittany...

[Gordonwis]

The most plausible vignette I can come up with is a small layout serving a warehouse (perhaps  bottling plant?), where the bi-foudres arrive from either Paris or further afield (usually south) 

[britishcolumbian]

11 hours ago, Gordonwis said:

The most plausible vignette I can come up with is a small layout serving a warehouse (perhaps  bottling plant?), where the bi-foudres arrive from either Paris or further afield (usually south) 

 

According to the fr.wikipedia article on the class,

 

Quote

Après remise en état pour certaines, elles furent affectées au dépôt de Rennes où elles effectuèrent un service d'omnibus et de marchandises. Par la suite elles furent ventilées vers les dépôts de Caen, Dieppe, Dol-de-Bretagne, Argentan, Laval, Paris-Vaugirard et Saintes.

 

So I'd guess your idea would be fitting. I like your bottling plant idea, it'd give a reason for my wine barrel cars to be present, too...

 

By "bi-foudres" do you mean these https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiture_à_étage_État ?

[Andy Hayter]

Bi-foudres are the wagons you have with 2 (bi-) barrels (foudres) used for moving wine in bulk from principally the South of France towards the agglomerations to the North.

 

 

[britishcolumbian]

43 minutes ago, Andy Hayter said:

Bi-foudres are the wagons you have with 2 (bi-) barrels (foudres) used for moving wine in bulk from principally the South of France towards the agglomerations to the North.

 

 

Thanks for the translation... my French (Québecois) is enough to get by on a day-to-day basis, but there's a great deal of more specialised terminology that I don't know. Like barrels.

 

Even better then - I won't have to try to build or CAD-draw the bilevels! Just get some more bi-foudres, maybe a few vans, and I'm set... (well, and find references for making État-era appropriate lettering for the bi-foudres, as they are they're SNCF)

[Andy Hayter]

It is a rather technical term relating to these very large vat-like barrels.

Dictionaries will give you several translations of a barrel but foudre is often not among them - tonneau, fut barrique etc..

Plus the typical translation of foudre is lightning 

 

[britishcolumbian]

8 minutes ago, Andy Hayter said:

Plus the typical translation of foudre is lightning

I first learned it in a very different context...

[Gordonwis]

4 hours ago, britishcolumbian said:

Thanks for the translation... my French (Québecois) is enough to get by on a day-to-day basis, but there's a great deal of more specialised terminology that I don't know. Like barrels.

 

Even better then - I won't have to try to build or CAD-draw the bilevels! Just get some more bi-foudres, maybe a few vans, and I'm set... (well, and find references for making État-era appropriate lettering for the bi-foudres, as they are they're SNCF)

 

Yes, I mentioned the bi-foudres because that is exactly what you already have behind the loco in your lead-off post - twin barrel wine wagons. No wine in Brittany so if they were used they would almost certainly not have Etat railway markings. Most Bi-foudres had private owner markings plus railway allocation PLM or PO-Midi for wine wholesalers in the south of France or the Paris region. I recommend you letter them up as the latter. Here is an example:  

 

http://www.maquetland.com/article-phototheque/10558-wagon-bi-foudre-1910-sete-2016

[Gordonwis]

2 hours ago, Andy Hayter said:

It is a rather technical term relating to these very large vat-like barrels.

Dictionaries will give you several translations of a barrel but foudre is often not among them - tonneau, fut barrique etc..

Plus the typical translation of foudre is lightning 

 

 

 

The trick with specialised words like this is to not look at a 'translation' dictionary (eg French/English) but to look up a 'single language' dictionary (eg Larousse for French)

 

I did exactly that and large barrel is one of the definitions. There is a background info note against said definition which explains that the word was borrowed from German (Fuder). 

 

  

[britishcolumbian]

28 minutes ago, Gordonwis said:

 

Yes, I mentioned the bi-foudres because that is exactly what you already have behind the loco in your lead-off post - twin barrel wine wagons. No wine in Brittany so if they were used they would almost certainly not have Etat railway markings. Most Bi-foudres had private owner markings plus railway allocation PLM or PO-Midi for wine wholesalers in the south of France or the Paris region. I recommend you letter them up as the latter. Here is an example:  

 

http://www.maquetland.com/article-phototheque/10558-wagon-bi-foudre-1910-sete-2016

Thanks for that link, the photos are great. I was just scanning through another article on them, at https://trainconsultant.com/2020/09/21/le-wagon-foudre-sa-vie-son-oeuvre-discutable/ , but I'll have to give it a better read when I'm less tired. But it's more of a history of barrel wagons in general.