Propellor-Driven Locomotives

Gallery opened Nov 2005

Updated: 4 Jan 2023

The Prop-Draisine added: 1931

There have been very few attempts to drive locomotives by means of propellors. One advantage is that forward thrust does not depend on adhesion between wheels and rails. A corresponding disadvantage is that a propellor does not give a positive drive; it is working in a fluid medium so there is an inevitable loss of efficiency. Propellors are inefficient when working away from their design airspeed, leading to very slow acceleration from rest. This is also true of other propellor driven means of transport such as propellor-driven cars and propellor-driven motorcycles.

THE RUSSIAN AEROWAGON :1917

Left: The Abakovsky Russian Prop-Locomotive: 1917 - 21
The Russian Aerowagon was an experimental high-speed railcar powered by an aircraft engine with a two-blade propeller. It was invented by Valerian Abakovsky, a Soviet engineer from Latvia, and built in 1917. It was capable of speeds of up to 87 mph (140 km/h), and was originally intended to carry Soviet officials at a faster pace than conventional trains.
The Aerowagon made a test rip from Moscow to the Tula collieries to test it on 24 July 1921; all went well on the outward journey, but on the return leg to Moscow it derailed at high speed near Serpukhov, killing six of the 22 people on board. One of those killed was Abakovsky. The project was abandoned.
The Aerowagon has a Wikipedia page that gives more details.

THE GERMAN DRINGOS PROP-LOCOMOTIVE: 1919

Left: The Dringos Prop-Locomotive: 1919
Until recently this project was believed to be Russian, but that is not the case and I apologise for the previous misinformation.
In fact the picture shows a test prototype of the "Dringos" locomtive, patented by Dr.-Ing. Otto Steinitz (front left in the photograph) and assembled under license by the Luftfahrt Company in Grunewald, a suburb of Berlin. It had an aero engine and a two-bladed propellor at each end. The locomotive made its first successful test run on May 11, 1919 from Grunewald to Beelitz, about 30 miles there and back, carrying various government railway officials and parliament members - about 40 people in total. The locomotive easily sustained a speed of 60 mph, limited mostly by concerns about the primitive chassis and braking system of the prototype.
The exhaust stub of the engine at the other end can be seen top right against the gantry.

Unfortunately no detail is visible in the dark parts of the photo, but a little information can be extracted from the picture. The engine is a 160HP six-cylinder in-line model, with a total absence of silencing on the exhaust stub. One thing that can be asserted with confidence is that this was not a quiet machine.
The test locomotive was built from an old railway freight wagon using a aircraft engines originally contracted for military use. Part of the motivation for this scheme was finding an acceptable civilian use for these engines that had been contracted for the war effort. Subsequent post-WW1 requirements that Germany destroy its stockpile of and manufacturing capacity for military aircraft parts were definitely a factor in diminishing the interest of the corporate backers - the engine manufacturers. The government railroad interests apparently had little enthusiasm for the concept all along.
It is notable that this project was at least ten years ahead of the more widely known Berlin-Hamburg trials of the Krukenberg propellor locomotive. (see below)

This information was most kindly provided by Michael Steinitz, the grandson of the inventor.

Left: The Dringos Prop-Locomotive: 1919
This is a much better version of the picture, kindly provided by Chuck Bencik, who has done a good deal of computer restoration work on it; many thanks to him. The magazine appears to have been photographed using a flashgun.
In this version the background has been removed.
The Dringos locomotive has a Wikipedia page but it is in Czech. Just hit the Translate button.

Left: The Dringos Prop-Locomotive: 1919
This shows the two car-type radiators and the fuel tank. Sadly the text tells us very little, and I doubt if that little is right.
It says the Germans had thousands of aero-engines on their hands, but I thought they had to be handed over as part of war reparations; some sources say the engines had to be destroyed, but putting them to railway use hardly counts as 'destroyed'. It also says the Germans were short of coal, but I would have though that petrol suitable for an aero-engine would be in even shorter supply. Hmmm...
Source: The Electrical Experimenter, May 1920, p30

THE BENNIE RAILPLANE: 1929

Left: The Bennie Railplane.
The Bennie Railplane was a streamlined coach powered at each end by an electric motor driving a four-bladed propeller. Each motor was rated at a continuous 60 bhp.The railplane was a monorail, suspended from a single rail above, with a stabilising rail below. The projected cruising speed was up to 120 miles per hour. Braking was partly by means of the overhead wheels, assisted by reversing the rear propellor. It was patented in 1921.
In 1929-30 a test track about a quarter of a mile in length was built over an LNER line at Milngavie, on the outskirts of Glasgow. Many successful tests and demonstrations were made, but no investors were forthcoming. The track was dismantled in 1941 as part of the WW2 scrap metal campaign, and sadly George Bennie died in obscurity in 1954.

This remarkable machine is a popular subject on the Web, and searching on "Bennie Railplane" will bring up far more information than there is space for here.

THE PROP-DRAISINE: 1931

Left: The Prop-Draisine: 1931
All that is currently known is that it was a "Propeller trolley for a mining company in Congo." A Draisine is a light auxiliary rail vehicle. Reverse image search gave nothing.
There are several interesting features here; the vehicle has four pneumatic tyres (presumably either road or rail use was intended) and eight little rail wheels running in grooves in the tracks. I reckon that would beat most locomotive classification systems. Note the big pulley (or chain-wheel) behind the propellor giving a good reduction ratio from the engine crankshaft. A nice touch is the headlight concentric with the propellor.
Why a propellor? With very light rails you could not have much engine weight for adhesion, so the idea was presumably to do away with the need for adhesion by using prop-thrust.
I am not impressed with the apology for a propellor-guard.
Source: Image from “The New Universe” ca.1931

THE RAIL-ZEPPELIN: 1931

Left: The Rail-Zeppelin: 1931
The schienenzeppelin (ie the rail zeppelin) was a prototype propellor-driven light-weight railcar that held the world railway speed record for no less than twenty years.
It was powered by a BMW aeroengine, driving a four-blade wooden pusher propeller. On June 21, 1931, it kept up 230 km/hour (143 mph) for about 20 km, gaining the . It was designed by Franz Kruckenberg. Like the Bennie railcar, it never went into production, mainly because of the obvious dangers of combining a propellor with a platform-full of passengers. Other problems were that you could not join two together to form a train because of the propellor position, and the inability of the propellor to drive the railcar up steep gradients.
The rail zeppelin has a very good Wikipedia page.
There is film of it on YouTube with German commentary.
There is also a newsreel of it in English on YouTube.

Above: The Rail-Zeppelin with casing removed: 1931
This shows the aircraft-style, or rather airship-style, of construction, with a complicated network of perforated aluminium girders. This was presumably essential to minimise the weight.
The original version had two coupled BMW IV 6-cylinder aircraft engines using petrol, which were later replaced with a single BMW VI 12-cylinder engine of 600 horsepower (450 kW) driving a four-bladed fixed pitch wooden (ash) propeller. This was later replaced by a two-bladed propellor. The propellor axis was angled down by 7.5 degrees to make sure there was a downward force on the track.
Picture kindly sourced by Chuck Bencik.

The rail zeppelin was dismantled in 1939 because its material was needed by the German army.
Most of you are probably familiar with Thomas the Tank Engine. I was astonished to hear that rail zeppelins have reached the island of Sodor.

Left: Hugo the Rail-Zeppelin
Hugo has undergone some modifications compared to the prototype:

Much of his front nose has been flattened to accommodate a face
He appears to have two additional windows on his cab compared to the prototype
He is fitted with a siren which he uses to warn nearby people that his propeller is starting
Unlike the prototype, Hugo is able to move backwards. Using a variable-pitch propellor, I assume
He runs on diesel instead of petrol (gasoline), unlike the first version of the Schienenzeppelin
His driver's name is Franz, apparently a reference to designer Franz Kruckenberg.
I don't know about you, but I find locomotives with huge faces rather scary.