The Maschinenbau-Gesellschaft Karlsruhe ('Karlsruhe Engineering Works') was a locomotive and

railway wagon A railroad car, railcar ( American and Canadian English), railway wagon, railway carriage, railway truck, railwagon, railcarriage or railtruck (British English and UIC), also called a train car, train wagon, train carriage or train truc ...

manufacturer in the early days of the German railways. It was based at

Karlsruhe Karlsruhe ( ; ; ; South Franconian German, South Franconian: ''Kallsruh'') is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, third-largest city of the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, after its capital Stuttgart a ...

in what is now the state of

Baden-Württemberg Baden-Württemberg ( ; ), commonly shortened to BW or BaWü, is a states of Germany, German state () in Southwest Germany, east of the Rhine, which forms the southern part of Germany's western border with France. With more than 11.07 million i ...

in southwestern

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. The origins of the firm go back to an engineering works founded in Karlsruhe in 1837 by

Emil Kessler Emil Julius Carl Kessler (20 August 1813 – 16 March 1867) was a German businessman and founder of the Maschinenfabrik Esslingen ('Esslingen Engineering Works'). Biography Kessler was born in Baden-Baden, attended school there and later studied c ...

and Theodor Martiensen. In 1842, the first

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 ...

, '' Badenia'', was delivered to the

Baden state railways Grand Duchy of Baden had its own state-owned railway company, the Grand Duchy of Baden State Railways (''Großherzoglich Badische Staatseisenbahnen or G.Bad.St.E.''), which was founded in 1840. At the time when it was integrated into the Deutsche ...

. After a financial crisis resulting from the collapse of the bank funding the company, Kessler's engineering works also got into economic difficulties. In 1852 the Maschinenbaugesellschaft Carlsruhe was founded, Emil Kessler left the company and the crisis was overcome. The Maschinenbaugesellschaft Karlsruhe always belonged to the ranks of those smaller steam locomotive manufacturers that mostly built locomotives under licence which had been designed by other firms. Their major customers were the

and, initially, also the

Bergisch-Märkische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft The Bergisch-Markisch Railway Company (, BME), also referred to as the Berg-Mark Railway Company or, more rarely, as the Bergisch-Markische Railway Company, was a Rail transport in Germany, German railway company that together with the Cologne-Mi ...

, the Köln-Mindener Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft, the

Rheinische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft The Rhenish Railway Company (German language, German: ''Rheinische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft'', RhE) was along with the Cologne-Minden Railway Company (CME) and the Bergisch-Märkische Railway Company (BME) one of the railway companies that in the m ...

and the Royal Hanoverian State Railways. After a period when the factory was working to full capacity during the course of the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, there followed a slump in sales in 1925, because the

Deutsche Reichsbahn The ''Deutsche Reichsbahn'' (), also known as the German National Railway, the German State Railway, German Reich Railway, and the German Imperial Railway, was the Weimar Republic, German national Rail transport, railway system created after th ...

ordered virtually no more new steam locomotives for several years. Although they produced the first batch of seven

DRG Class 86 The DRG Class 86 was a standard (see ''Einheitsdampflokomotive'') goods train tank locomotive with the Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft. It was intended for duties on branch lines and was delivered by almost all the locomotive building firms worki ...

standard steam locomotives (''

Einheitsdampflokomotiven The Einheitsdampflokomotiven ("standard steam locomotives"), sometimes shortened to ''Einheitslokomotiven'', ''Einheitsloks'', ''Einheitsdampfloks'' or simply ''Dampflok'', were the standardized steam locomotives built in Germany after 1925 under th ...

'') for the Reichsbahn in 1928,Eisenbahn Journal, Band No. 2, Typenblätter, Baureihen 60-98, Archiv 1/2001, Horst J. Obermeyer, p77 that same year locomotive production at the Maschinenbau-Gesellschaft Karlsruhe had to be ceased. Attempts to save the firm by taking on the construction of

diesel locomotive A diesel locomotive is a type of railway locomotive in which the prime mover (locomotive), power source is a diesel engine. Several types of diesel locomotives have been developed, differing mainly in the means by which mechanical power is con ...

s were unsuccessful and it went into bankruptcy in 1929. Between 1842 and 1928 a total of 2,370 locomotives had been built in Karlsruhe. The factory for the engineering works was initially located south of Karlsruhe's city centre at Karlstor. In 1902 it was transferred to a new site at Karlsruhe's western station (''Westbahnhof'') in Grünwinkel. During the first 30 years of its existence, a number of notable engineers worked for the Karlsruhe locomotive builders, including

Niklaus Riggenbach Niklaus Riggenbach (21 May 1817 – 25 July 1899) was an Alsatian-born Swiss mechanic, railway engineer, politician and inventor of the rack railway system as well as the counter-pressure brake. Riggenbach was primarily known for introducin ...

Carl Benz Carl (or Karl) Friedrich Benz (; born Karl Friedrich Michael Vaillant; 25 November 1844 – 4 April 1929) was a German engine designer and automotive engineer. His Benz Patent-Motorwagen from 1885 is considered the first practical modern automob ...

Gottlieb Daimler Gottlieb Wilhelm Daimler (; 17 March 1834 – 6 March 1900) was a German engineer, industrial designer and industrialist. He was a pioneer of internal-combustion engines and automobile development. He invented the high-speed liquid petroleum-fue ...

and

Wilhelm Maybach Wilhelm Maybach (; 9 February 1846 – 29 December 1929) was an early German engine designer and industrialist. During the 1890s he was hailed in France, then the world centre for car production, as the "King of Designers". From the late 19th ce ...

References

Literature

* Werner Willhaus, ''Die Geschichte der Maschinenbaugesellschaft Karlsruhe und ihrer Vorgänger''. EK-Verlag Freiburg, 2005. {{ISBN, 3-88255-837-7 Transport in Baden-Württemberg Companies based in Baden-Württemberg Companies based in Karlsruhe Defunct locomotive manufacturers of Germany Defunct rolling stock manufacturers of Germany