>>1289329>>1289330Wojack-poster started it. He complained about electric locomotives.
But really, electric locomotives were some of the best locomotives in the world in the 1930s. Pic rel is the DRG E18 locomotive, built in the 1930s across Germany. They had a top speed of 150 km/h and regularly reached those top speeds, with the only limiting factor being the slow implementation of rail electrification across all German mainlines.
The E18 survived WWII, barely, but in East Germany, a lot of the electrified lines, of which most were in the East to connect to Berlin, were removed by the Soviets who took it back to the USSR as "reparations". The E18 would run until its retirement in the 1980s with replacements built in East Germany (and those locomotives still being some of the work horses of DB's regional and freight services).
Steam locomotives were obsolete by the 1920s, that could be seen in France, Switzerland, Germany and Austria. The only reason steam stayed for so long, was because it took decades for diesels to even come close to what steam or electric traction offered.
