Operations
Since the DB V 169-001 (DB 219 001) had already proven sufficiently that a locomotive of this type would work the Class 210 went into normal operations fairly quickly - between the end of 1970 and the beginning of 1971 the locomotives began operations, by the end of 1971 all eight locomotives had been introduced to the railway centre (Bahnbetriebswerk or Bw.) at Kempten and were in scheduled operation. This included work in the Allgaeu region, and trains such as the TEE Bavaria from Zürich to Munich or Lindau.
At first the locomotives entirely met the performance expected of them, however, the train heating in the winter was a little weak, so that then often two locomotives of series 210 for heavy trains were needed.
The Bw. Kempten had a special maintenance shop built for the gas turbines, with the staff trained in the maintenance of Klöckner-Humboldt-Deutz machines. When major repairs were needed, the affected turbine was transported to the manufacturer in a special container. To avoid having any locomotive out of operation the Bundesbahn held in stock two gas turbines (in total 10), for the eight locomotives, and the turnaround time for turbine replacement was six hours.
The on 23 March 1978, a turbine failed catastrophically: 210 003 was in travelling on the Kempten-east track under full power when a turbine impeller broke. As a result all the turbines were inspected - some were found to have signs of fatigue and were exchanged, by 13 October 1978 all the machines went back into service with the gas turbine engines in operation. Unfortunately, shortly afterwards on 31 December 1978 on route to Eichenau, a compressor impeller broke and cut a fuel line - leaving the turbine room of the locomotive on fire.
Although the fire was quickly extinguished in Fürstenfeldbruck station, and the locomotive spared serious damage the Deutsche Bundesbahn had to cease use of the turbines and investigate - it was found that the frequent restarting of the turbines was shortening their lifespan - leading (i.e. a shorter than expected time between failures than what was expected from examples of use in helicopters whose turbines were in continuous operation.)
An effort was made to prevent further accidents, by undertaking maintenance more frequently, and replacing more often - however the costs of this, coupled with the already high fuel costs of operations meant that the locomotives became uneconomic; as a consequence, the DB decide to remove the gas turbines and converted the entire class to conventional reciprocating engine operations - these rebuilt locomotives were desgnated DB Class 218.9
Read more about this topic: DB Class 210
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