I was discussing Turbine locos with someone the other day. Apparently most of the German Turbine technology was developed for the German war effort on the Russian front. While there was tons of snow, there wasn't much fresh "drinkable" water for steam locos along the way. Things were fine where there were big stations that had boilers that could melt the snow. The solution was to build turbine locos.
It was a couple of years or so after that, that South Africa built the Class 25C locos for use in the drier regions.
Well at least that's what I was told.
Niel