The August issue of Modelleisenbahner has a three page article by Olaf Haensch describing the restoration and return to steam of a Bulgarian State Railways (BDZ) two cylinder 2-12-4T locomotive !!! This is called the "Bulgarian Bear", for some reason.

That's NOT a typo or an early April Fool's joke !!! You fellas should SEE this thing, or am I the only guy that never heard of it before ??? The article has a couple gnarly fotos of the test run in MAY 2015, and a dimensioned side elevation, but no stats. For once, there's no links or website for the friends or fantrip schedule.

My computer is great for ads and error messages, but not much help otherwise --- Maybe one of our group will have better luck searching this one than I have (reading MEB is a lot less hassle). Try BDZ 46.03.

I'M NOT MAKING THIS UP.

There's actually 2 of them left. 46.03 is two cylinder, built by HCP in Poznan, Poland. 46.13 is 3 cylinder, and built by Schwarzkopf in Berlin, Germany.

Man alive, that is an interesting looking beast!
http://www.railpictures.net/photo/533208/

I kinda like those Czech State Rys 4-8-4T streamlined tank engines, with welded boilers and skyline casings, too, they're called "Papousek" which means parrot. They have at least three that run, two in blue and another in green...

SEND ME A POSTCARD, I gave all that up when I bought #6.

Bulgarian Railways had a liking for odd wheel arrangements as they also had a number of 0-12-0T locos, one of which survives and is in store at Asenovo.They were built by Hanomag in 1922,

A rather poor shot of it, taken in 2008, is shown below

Both locomotive types are discussed in the book by Prof. Dr. A. Giesl-Gieslingen
"Locomotiv-Athleten" devoted to 6- and 7-coupled locomotives.
Kind regards
Jos Koopmans

What operating environment were these locomotives designed for? Possibly freight trains and grades? Did all those driving wheels under saddle tanks provide some formidable tractive effort?

On the above photo, what is that rod sticking out from the cylinder cover?

That's a tail rod, not at all unusual in other parts of the world. It is an extension of the piston rod through the piston and helps support it and equalize weight and pressure distribution in both ends of the cylinder.

I'd say heavy freight trains and heavy grades is a real good guess. The extra weight in the side tanks no doubt gave the Bulgarian Bear a bit more bite.

The guy that wrote the MEB feature is a friend of mine, and I have another friend who works for DB and goes steam hunting in eastern europe a lot. If I find out anything juicy about the BDZ 46 class, or the CSD Papousek, I'll share it here.