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The Engerth locomotive was a type of early
articulated An articulated vehicle is a vehicle which has a permanent or semi-permanent coupling in its construction. This coupling works as a large pivot joint, allowing it to bend and turn more sharply. There are many kinds, from heavy equipment to buse ...
steam locomotive A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, Fuel oil, oil or, rarely, Wood fuel, wood) to heat ...
designed by Wilhelm Freiherr von Engerth for use on the Semmering Railway in Austria. The distinctive feature of the Engerth design was an articulated tender as part of the main locomotive frame. Some of the weight of the tender therefore rested on the driving wheels, improving adhesion, while articulation allowed the locomotive to navigate the narrow curves of mountain railways.


Designer

Wilhelm von Engerth was born in
Pless Pleß or Pless may refer to: Places *Pleß, a municipality in the district of Unterallgäu in Bavaria, Germany * Pszczyna (German: Pleß), a town in southern Poland ** Duchy of Pless, a historic territory in Silesia * Pleß (mountain), a mountai ...
,
Upper Silesia Upper Silesia ( ; ; ; ; Silesian German: ; ) is the southeastern part of the historical and geographical region of Silesia, located today mostly in Poland, with small parts in the Czech Republic. The area is predominantly known for its heav ...
(Now Pszczyna, Poland) on 26 May 1814, the brother of the artist Edouard von Engerth. Initially, he studied architecture, but in 1834 he took up mechanical engineering as a profession. By the late 1850s he was the General Manager of the Imperial Austrian State Railways. Von Engerth was created a
Baron Baron is a rank of nobility or title of honour, often Hereditary title, hereditary, in various European countries, either current or historical. The female equivalent is baroness. Typically, the title denotes an aristocrat who ranks higher than ...
(
Freiherr (; male, abbreviated as ), (; his wife, abbreviated as , ) and (, his unmarried daughters and maiden aunts) are designations used as titles of nobility in the German-speaking areas of the Holy Roman Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and in ...
) in 1875, and he died on 4 September 1884 in Leesdorf.Translated from the German article


History

Von Engerth first patented his design for an
articulated locomotive An articulated locomotive is a steam locomotive (rarely, an electric locomotive) with one or more engine units that can move independently of the main frame. Articulation allows the operation of locomotives that would otherwise be too large to ...
on 11 December 1852.


Semmering

The Semmering Railway, opened on 17 July 1854, was one of the first true
mountain railway A mountain railway is a railway that operates in a mountainous region. It may operate through the mountains by following mountain valleys and tunneling beneath mountain passes, or it may climb a mountain to provide transport to and from the su ...
s, traversing a section of the Austrian
Alps The Alps () are some of the highest and most extensive mountain ranges in Europe, stretching approximately across eight Alpine countries (from west to east): Monaco, France, Switzerland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Germany, Austria and Slovenia. ...
. It was characterized by steep gradients and sharp curves. To work this railway a new design of locomotive was developed. A competition was held to decide which locomotives would be bought for operation on the Semmering Railway. One stretch of the line had gradients of 1 in 40 (2.5%) and curves with a minimum radius of and a maximum radius of . A speed of was required to be maintained and a maximum axle loading of 14 tonnes, with a boiler pressure not exceeding 8.5 kgf/cm2 (830
kPa The pascal (symbol: Pa) is the unit of pressure in the International System of Units (SI). It is also used to quantify internal pressure, stress, Young's modulus, and ultimate tensile strength. The unit, named after Blaise Pascal, is an SI ...
). There were four entrants, ''Bavaria'', built by Maffei; ''Wiener-Neustadt'' built by Wiener-Neustadt; ''Seraing'' built by
Société anonyme John Cockerill Groupe Lactalis S.A. (doing business as Lactalis) is a French multinational dairy products corporation, owned by the Besnier family and based in Laval, Mayenne, France. The company's former name was Besnier S.A. Lactalis is the largest dairy pr ...
in Belgium and ''Vindobona'' built by the Gloggnitz Bahn in
Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...
. All four locomotives met the trial conditions, but none proved reliable in practical use. The Semmering Trials led to a number of developments in locomotive design: Fairlie's Patent of 1863, The
Meyer locomotive A Meyer locomotive is a type of articulated locomotive that has two separate Bogie, bogies, upon which the boiler and firebox swivel. The design was never as popular as the Garratt locomotive, Garratt or Mallet locomotive, Mallet locomotives. It ca ...
and the
Mallet locomotive A Mallet locomotive is a type of compound locomotive, compound articulated locomotive, articulated steam locomotive, invented by the Swiss engineer Anatole Mallet (1837–1919). The front of the locomotive is articulated on a bogie. The Compou ...
. The Engerth design articulated the tender with the main locomotive frame, allowing some of the weight of the fuel and water to be carried on the
driving wheel On a steam locomotive, a driving wheel is a powered wheel which is driven by the locomotive's pistons (or turbine, in the case of a steam turbine locomotive). On a conventional, non-articulated locomotive, the driving wheels are all coupled t ...
s to improve
adhesion Adhesion is the tendency of dissimilar particles or interface (matter), surfaces to cling to one another. (Cohesion (chemistry), Cohesion refers to the tendency of similar or identical particles and surfaces to cling to one another.) The ...
. Because the tender was articulated, rather than directly attached to the frame, the locomotive could traverse relatively sharp curves, while still enjoying the advantage of the additional adhesive weight gain. The original design also included an indirect drive from the main driving wheels to the wheels under the tender. This arrangement proved too complex to maintain and was dropped from the design. Sixteen locomotives were supplied to the Semmering Railway between November 1853 and May 1854. They proved capable of uphill on gradients of 1 in 40 (2.5%). An Engerth locomotive was featured on an Austrian stamp commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Semmering Railway in 2004. The Engerth locomotive also appeared on a 25 Euro coin issued by Austria in 2004.


Other Engerth locomotives

The design proved popular, especially for use in Alpine mountain railways. Engerth locomotives were found with wheel arrangements of , , , , and . As well as in Austria, they were used in
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, France, Italy, Java, Romania, Spain and Switzerland. Krauss of
Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...
built ten locomotive for the Ponferrada - Villablino Railway (PV) in Spain. Some narrow gauge locomotives were built for the Elgoibar - San Sebastián Railway. These powerful locomotives were capable of and could traverse
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of radius. Two of these locomotives were later sold to the PV. Another four locomotives built by
MACOSA Stadler Rail Valencia SAU is a Spanish company, mainly producing products for the railway industry, subsidiary of Stadler Rail. History MACOSA The Company was founded in 1947 with the name Material y Construcciones S.A. (or MACOSA) by the merge ...
in Spain were also bought by the PV. Three of the PV locomotives were in service until 1989. Thirteen Engerth locomotives were supplied to the Oraviţa - Bazias Railway in Romania in 1854.


Fink variation

A variation of the Engerth system was devised by Pius Fink. This entailed having the rear wheels also driven by coupling rods from a crankshaft, thus making the locomotive an 0-6-4-0T. One locomotive was built by the Staatseisenbahn Gesellschaft, Vienna in 1861 carried No. 500 and was named ''Steyerdorf''. It was used on the Reschitza - Orawicza line. Three more were built, the last in 1867. These included No. 501 ''Krassova'' and No. 502 ''Gerliste''. One of these four locomotives survived until 1891, becoming
Hungarian State Railways The Hungarian State Railways (, , formally MÁV Magyar Államvasutak Zártkörűen Működő Részvénytársaság (MÁV Zrt.). The full official name of the company is MÁV-csoport () now commonly known as MÁV) is the Hungary, Hungarian natio ...
No.4270.


Preservation

One example of the Engerth type is preserved at the
Swiss Transport Museum The Swiss Museum of Transport or ''Verkehrshaus der Schweiz'' (literally "Transportation House of Switzerland") in Lucerne opened in July 1959 and exhibits all forms of transport including trains, automobiles, ships and aircraft as well as communi ...
in
Lucerne Lucerne ( ) or Luzern ()Other languages: ; ; ; . is a city in central Switzerland, in the Languages of Switzerland, German-speaking portion of the country. Lucerne is the capital of the canton of Lucerne and part of the Lucerne (district), di ...
. This locomotive, No.28 ''Genf'' an built by
Maschinenfabrik Esslingen Maschinenfabrik Esslingen (ME) was a German engineering firm that manufactured locomotives, tramways, railway wagons, roll-blocks, technical equipment for the railways, (turntable (rail), turntables and traverser (railway), traversers), bridges, s ...
in 1858 to work the Schweizerische Centraalbahn (
Swiss Central Railway The Swiss Central Railway (''Schweizerische Centralbahn''; SCB or S.C.B.) was one of the five major private railway companies of Switzerland. The SCB with a track length of 332 kilometres was integrated into the Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) in ...
). She retired from active service in 1899 and was used as a static boiler at
Olten Olten (; High Alemannic: ''Oute'') is a town in the canton of Solothurn in Switzerland and capital of the district of the same name. Olten grew into a town during the Middle Ages at the location of a bridge over the Aare. After a period of de ...
. She is the oldest locomotive in Switzerland. Buštěhradská dráha (
Buštěhrad Buštěhrad () is a town in Kladno District in the Central Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 4,000 inhabitants. Etymology The settlement was originally named Buščeves, which was derived from ''Buškova ves'' (i.e. "Bušek's vil ...
Railway) locomotive 103 ''Kladno'' is preserved in the National Technical Museum in
Prague Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...
,
Czech Republic The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, and historically known as Bohemia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the south ...
. All six of the narrow gauge NÖLB Mh or 399 class Engerth locomotives survive in Austria. These gauge (D2h2t) locomotives were built by Krauss for the Mariazellerbahn in 1906 and 1908. When the Mariazellerbahn was electrified the Niederosterreichische Landesbahn (NOLB) transferred them to their Waldviertler Schmalspurbahnen system at Gmund. When the
ÖBB The Austrian Federal Railways ( , formally or () and formerly the or ''BBÖ'' ), now commonly known as ÖBB (), is the national railway company of Austria, and the administrator of Liechtenstein's railways. The ÖBB group i ...
took over in 1922 the locomotives were redesignated the 399 class. Mh1 / 399.01 (5431/1906) is currently based at Gmünd. Mh2 / 399.02 (5432/1906). Mh3 / 399.03 (5433/1906) was sold to the
Pinzgauer Lokalbahn The Pinzgauer Lokalbahn (formerly Pinzgaubahn or Krimmler Bahn) is a narrow-gauge railway in Salzburg in Austria. The railway follows the Salzach valley from Zell am See to Krimml through the Pinzgau mountains. The section between Mittersill and ...
. It is currently based at Zell am See. Mh4 / 399.04 (5434/1906) is based at Gmünd. Mh5 / 399.05 (5924/1908) is privately owned.http://www.waldviertelbahn.info/wsv/spendenaktion.pdf Mh6 / 399.06 (5925/1908) is preserved on the Mariazellerbahn in Austria.(German)
Chemins de fer du Midi The Compagnie des chemins de fer du Midi (, . CF du Midi), also known in English as the Midi or Southern Railway, was an early French railway company which operated a network of routes in the southwest of the country, chiefly in the area betwe ...
locomotive no.312 ''L'Adour'' is preserved at the Musée Français du Chemin de Fer,
Mulhouse Mulhouse (; ; Alsatian language, Alsatian: ''Mìlhüsa'' ; , meaning "Mill (grinding), mill house") is a France, French city of the European Collectivity of Alsace (Haut-Rhin department, in the Grand Est region of France). It is near the Fran ...
, France.


Reproduction

The Beer Heights Light Railway has ''Gem'', an Engerth type locomotive on its gauge line.


Further reading

*


References


External links


Photo
and description of Engerth locomotive .

of an Engerth locomotive.

of CD with Javan Engerth locomotives mentioned. {{DEFAULTSORT:Engerth Locomotive Steam locomotive types Articulated vehicles Articulated locomotives