DRB Class 52 - Countries Using The Engine

Countries Using The Engine

100 were built for Romanian State Railways, becoming their Class 150.1

Over 150 were in use by the Bulgarian State Railways as Class 15.

10 were built for Turkish Republic Railways, forming the TCDD 56501 Class. Turkish Railways acquired 43 additional locos at the end of the war, these had previously been on hire.

Several have been preserved. One of these is preserved on the Nene Valley Railway in Peterborough, England. Another one is still in service with the Franconian Museum Railway in Bavaria, Germany.

The DR in East Germany had 200 machines reconstructed to the new DR Class 52.80.

74 locomotives were sent to Norway during WWII and were confiscated as war reparations following the war. One engine is extant at the Norwegian Railway Museum which has been restored by the Norwegian Railway Club.

The ČSD Czechoslovak state railways used hundreds of 52s post-war, partly left here by the Nazis after the liberation in May 1945, partly brought in as war reparation and/or (re)built by the Škoda Works in Plzeň. They bore designation of typová řada (type line) ČSD 555; several dozen were subsequently adapted, as the 555.3, to burn mazut, a large surplus of which was generated in Czechoslovak synthetic fuel plants by the Fischer-Tropsch method of producing petrol from brown coal, abundant here. The 555.3 differed visibly (besides the differences brought about by use of the semi-liquid fuel) also by having a lid on the smokestack to slow down cooling of the refractory lining in the flue passage, to prevent its cracking.

The MÁV Hungarian State Railways acquired 100 locomotives from the Soviet Union that were brought there as war trophies in 1963. They were retired from the MÁV and the GYSEV in the 1980s. They served under the classification 520.