Prussian S 5

The S 5 were express locomotives with a compound engine that were part of the development line of the Prussian 4-4-0 machines from the S 2 to the S 6 and were actually an enlarged development of the S 3. Saturated steam was still used in order not to use too many new technologies at the same time.

The first machine with the designation S 5¹ was a four-cylinder locomotive of the de Glehn type, which was completed in 1894 and was designed exclusively for the flat country with coupled wheels with a diameter of 2,150 mm or 7 feet and 5/8 inches. 22 production units were built in 1902 and 1903 at Grafenstaden and Henschel with the typical Prussian wheel diameter of 1,980 mm or 6 feet and 6 inches. Based on this, the Reichseisenbahnen Alsace-Lorraine ordered similar machines, which they designated as the S 5.

Hanomag produced another 17 locomotives of this type between 1900 and 1903, but these were of the Borries design. Thus, all four cylinders acted on the first driving axle. Both types of the S 5¹ did not prove particularly successful in Prussia, which is why no further batches were procured and the existing locomotives were used until the early 1920s.

Finally, a new locomotive was developed with only two cylinders in a compound design. Since this was again closer to the S 3, it was still called the “enlarged S 3” until 1911, but was then renamed S 5². Production was taken over by Vulcan and Schichau, who had already built the design it was based on. In the years 1905 to 1911 367 of these were made. In addition to the Prussian State Railways, the Lübeck-Büchen Railway procured seven machines of this type and the Oldenburg State Railway eleven, which received a Lentz valve gear.

Compared to the S 5¹, a larger number of the S 5² were taken over by the Reichsbahn and given the numbers 13 651 to 13 850. Only one of the LBE locomotives survived until it was taken over in 1938, this became the 13 001. At that time all the other machines had already been retired, but 22 units were returned to Germany in the Second World War which had been given to Poland after the First World War. Most of them came to the GDR and were returned to Poland around 1955.