Hello,

Recently I have been curious how the Germans designed their tail rod supports.

Stumbled across these guys visiting the two 2-10-0 WWII era Kriegsloks in Bosnia. Hyce also recently had a spotlight video on these locomotives, he visited there.

https://youtu.be/teoB8zac-CM?si=Rspe4MegAX4_dAnF

In this video they happened to film one of the locomotives in very good morning sunlight and there were a few scenes with close up views of the tail rod supports. Video clock….4:16-4:50 Looks like the packing is easily accessible with a gap between the packing and the bearing tube….also it looks like the piston valve stems had tail rods too.

Other practice had a fully enclosed bearing and packing assembly with an access port covered by a round blind flange. See photo link here…..

https://www.shutterstock.com/image-phot ... -367401074

The Germans seemed dedicated to using tail rods but not here in the US. yes, double the packing and double the maintenance to keep them tight. Cylinder wear seemed to be less a concern here.

Also interesting in the video is the noticeable flare out of the smoke lifter shields. The shields had a wider opening in the front and closed down on the smokebox at the rear…..possibly intended to funnel the air for higher velocity.

Regards,

Randy

First time I had ever heard of these, here are descriptions for those of you equally in the dark (don't complain that the links in a twenty-three year old thread don't work):
viewtopic.php?t=2868
https://steampunksavant.com/tail-rods.html