Polish TKS tankette captured and recommissioned by the Germans, probably for partisan duty in Yugoslavia.
Prussian T12 2-6-0T ...
...steaming there completely uncamouflaged, unarmored, and unwashed
This tableaux captures an engine that was worked tirelessly in an occupied Polish railyard and depot, conscripted as a heavy switcher to move supply trains under Nazi supervision.
The similarly captured-and-conscripted TKS tankettes!
When Nazi Germany invaded Poland in 1939, the Deutsche Reichsbahn immediately took over all PKP facilities and re-stamped the captured Polish locomotives back into Nazi German inventory — that's what I think this is!
Prussian T12 2-6-0T to PKP Class OKi2:
After WWI, in Poland, the newly formed PKP (Polish State Railways, er: "Polskie Koleje Państwowe") obtained dozens of these exact Prussian T12 locomotives as war reparations. Former Prussian locomotives! Poland designated them as the OKi2 class (The "O" designated passenger trains, the "K" indicates a tank engine, and the "i" is for the 2-6-0 wheel layout). One of these gang-pressed OKi2's in post-war in Germany, protesting the East/West Germany division:
Deutsche an einen Tisch.
Which opens up a little story about a spunky Prussian-designed side-tank steam locomotive, shunting hard during WWI, paid as repatriation to the Poles, kidnapped by the Nazis, and surviving in a split Germany!
Thank you for reading!
