MB835

By the end of the 1950s the 1,100 PS twelves from Maybach, Daimler-Benz and MAN were the strongest units available in quantity, and the V 200 was already outmatched by the trains it was being asked to pull. Daimler-Benz answered in 1959 by enlarging the MB 820's cylinder to 190 mm bore and 230 mm stroke — some 78 liters in twelve cylinders at a 45° vee — and submitting the result to the UIC type test under ORE supervision. Rated deliberately conservatively at 1,350 PS at 1,500 rpm, the MB 835 Ab was cleared and waiting when Krauss-Maffei needed it.

Fifty V 200.1s were built between 1962 and 1965 with two engines apiece, lifting the class from roughly 24 to 33 PS per tonne and putting it within sight of the six-axle V 320. There was no successor: electrification was shrinking the market for big diesel locomotives. Away from the rails the engine did duty as a main unit in boats and generating sets, and Daimler-Benz licensed it to Ikegai in Japan; after the Maybach merger it was rebadged MTU MB 12 V 652. Twenty of the locomotives were sold to Greece in 1988 and shipped home again in 2002.