Heavy Tank Locomotive.

There Once Was a Class 96 ... Three steeply graded routes with grade of 2 to 2.5 percent forced the Bavarian State Railways to purchase extraordinarily powerful steam locomotives at the start of the twentieth century. The boiler had to be made rather large due to the required power output; the axle loads could not exceed 15 metric tons, however. The total mass of around 120 metric tons had to be distributed over eight wheel sets. The Munich locomotive builder J. A. Maffei finished the first of the new Bavarian class Gt 2x4/4 in November of 1913. This locomotive had the road number 5751. In the Twenties, it was given the designation 96 001. This locomotive was equipped with a group of driving wheels with high pressure cylinders and a group of driving wheels with low pressure cylinders, and it produced up to 1,300 horsepower. On a 2 percent grade it was able to haul a train of 800 metric tons at a speed of 20 km/h / 13 mph. A Gt 2x4/4 replaced up to three of the pusher locomotives in use up to then. In 1913 and 1914, Maffei delivered 15 locomotives with the road numbers 5751 to 5765. In 1922, another ten improved locomotives followed with the 5766 to 5775. They appeared in the German State Railroad's numbering scheme as 96 001 to 96 025. These locomotives were always used in service on steep grades. The last 16 units of the class 96 in existence in West Germany were retired in October of 1948 in the Nürnberg District. Two were still in use up to 1949/50 at the Stendal maintenance center.