Were German Locomotives sold to the Ukraine?

(by Ingo Hütter)

One of the most difficult chapters in the German railway history is the development of the railways in the east at the end of WWI. According to the today known data the locomotive transfers to Poland, Lithunia and Latvia can be looked upon as being nearly completely clarified, but the transfers to the Ukraine are still full of unsolved questions. The only known source on this subject is the book "Russian Locomotives, Volume 2 (1905-1924)" by Jukka Nurminen and F.M. Page giving on page 124 the following table:

It's a mess, but this overview again leads to a lot of new questions, as for many of the given locomotives is definetely known, that they didn't remain in the Ukraine. As an example the following locomotives shall be mentioned:

• ALT 1717 was forseen as DRB 34 7121 in the preliminary renumbering plan of 1923
• ALT 1718 was forseen as DRB 34 7122 in the preliminary renumbering plan of 1923
• ALT 4153 was forseen as DRB 54 234 in the preliminary renumbering plan of 1923
• BSL 3261 was withdrawn before 1913
• BSL 4408 became LG 351
• BSL 4459 was transferred to the Entente in 1918/19
• BRO 3125 was withdrawn in 1920
• BRO 3126 was withdrawn in 1921

Because the sources for the above given table are still unknown, some doubts came up during the last years if the given table can be right and if locomotives had been sold at all to the Ukraine. But short time ago a new document came to the light giving the proof that at least one locomotive was sold to the Ukraine:

But it should be mentioned, that the above given locomotive BLN 3809 is missing in the table of the book. To conclude: It wasn't possible to clear up the doubts on the correctness of table given in the book "Russian Locomotives", but now we know that German locomotives were really sold to the Ukraine.