Windtunnelmodel 'Potvis'

Wind tunnel model ‘Potvis (Sperm whale)’

In March 1935, tests were conducted in the wind tunnel of the aviation engineering office in Amsterdam under the supervision of NS engineers W. Hupkes and P. Labrijn. A ‘dual’ model of a series-3700 locomotive at a 1:20 scale was used for the testing. On one side, the model had the shape of an ordinary steam locomotive, while on the other side, streamlined fairing had been installed as a kind of ‘jacket’. The idea behind this was that streamlined steam locomotives would encounter less wind resistance, which would in turn reduce coal consumption and allow greater speeds to be attained. Based on these tests, a number of steam locomotives from the 3700/3800 series were in fact fitted with streamlined fairings.