2 foot 6 in gauge steam RR near Bitburg Air Force Base, 1960s

Chris Walker's posting of a video featuring a 2 foot gauge 0-6-0WT engine now running in the UK, made we wonder if the Orenstein &Koppel engine is identical to the 0-6-0WT engines that ran on the Phillipsheim - Binsfeld narrow gauge near the Bitburg air force base in the Eifel region of Germany. While at first glance the engines looked very similar, on closer inspection they are different. The main differences being that the engines on the German narrow gauge being of 2 ft 6 in. gauge rather than 2ft, and that they are of outside frame construction with Walschaert valve gear. Being just a few miles from the Bitburg AFB, I wonder if some of the ex-USAF members of the NGDF had a chance to see this narrow gauge in operation. The 6-mile line hauled clay from the pit near Binsfeld to the re-load into standard gauge cars at Phillipsheim until 1965, when the clay haulage contract was awarded to a trucking company. Efforts to turn the RR into a tourist/museum operation failed to come to fruition, and line was dismantled in 1970. The grade is now a bike trail "going thru some dense forest areas".

Locomotive Number 1 is now in Gerolstein for planned restoration, and engine 2 is in Binsfeld on display. In the early 1960s my photo-trading friend Klaus Adam from Koeln (Cologne) sent me a couple of pictures he took of engine 2 in action. There is a very rough 8mm movie of engine 2 on UTube. If anyone happened to catch this ng in action, I would love to see some more photos.

Engine 2 with the daily morning train of empties headed for Binsfeld and the clay pits about 1960





Engine 2 on display in Binsfeld





Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 01/05/2020 04:45PM by Olaf Rasmussen.