"PU29" – the Polish heavy steam locomotive

"PU29" - a series of pre-war Polish express steam locomotives. These were the largest locomotives, that ran on Polish railways at that time. In the interwar period, steam locomotives “Ok1” and “Ok22” and “Pd5” and “Pn12”, produced in Prussia and Austria, were used to pull heavy express trains. But these were not steam locomotives, intended for this work. At that time, the Ministry of Communications ordered the design of a heavy machine to service heavy express trains. The design of such a locomotive was undertaken by the Ippolit Cegelski factory in Poznań. Three prototypes were produced, designated "PU29", and their design allowed pulling heavy trains at speeds of up to 110 km/h. These were the longest PKP steam locomotives – 24,620 mm and therefore did not fit on many turning mechanisms. In 1931, the "PU29" were accepted into PKP service and assigned to the Chojnice railway depot. These steam locomotives mainly served the transit line from Germany to East Prussia on the Chojnice-Tczew-Malbork section. These steam locomotives had excellent characteristics, but were too heavy, too large for this purpose, and did not fit on the turning carousels, so PKP did not order a larger number of them. It was decided to order smaller and more universal steam locomotives "Pt31" instead. After the war, only one of the three steam locomotives of this type returned to Poland, which was assigned to the Gdańsk DOKP depot, but was constantly moved between the depots in Bydgoszcz, Inowrocław, Toruń and Iława. In 1970 it ended its service in Toruń, in 1978 it was repaired by the ZNTK in Bydgoszcz and transferred to the Koscierzyn Skansen, from where it was transferred to the Railway Museum in Warsaw in 2012.

A small, simple, simply designed, but beautiful steam locomotive model for beginners. True, it is not completely simple, but it will be perfect for beginners. You just need to work carefully, meticulously and You will need more, than one bucket of patience. Very good, albeit small, textual instruction, graphical ones are also excellent, consisting of photos of individual parts and assembly stages.