The kkStB 73 were a class of

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 ...

s of operated by the

Imperial Royal Austrian State Railways The Imperial-Royal State Railways () abbr. ''kkStB'') or Imperial-Royal Austrian State Railways (''k.k. österreichische Staatsbahnen'',The name incorporating "Austrian" appears, for example, in the 1907 official state handbook (''Staatshandbuch'' ...

(''kaiserlich-königliche österreichische Staatsbahnen, k.k.St.B.''), for freight duties.

History

The kkStB procured these eight-coupled locomotives from 1885 to 1909. The first machines (73.01-73.04) were procured for the

Arlberg Railway The Arlberg Railway (), which connects the Austrian cities Innsbruck and Bludenz, is Austria's only ''east-west'' mountain railway. It is one of the highest standard gauge railways in Europe and the second highest in Austria, after the Brenner ...

, the 73.23-73.28 for the Galician Transversal Railway. All five Austrian locomotive factories were involved in the delivery of the 73 class. A total of 453 locomotives were added to the kkStB inventory. They had the numbers 73.01–73.454 (the number 73.300 was not used). The 73-class locomotives were very powerful in their day and shaped freight transport in what was then Austria for 25 years. They could haul at on the level, at on a 10‰ (1% or 1 in 100) gradient and at on a 25‰ (2.5% or 1 in 40) gradient. Their power was . The 73 series was mainly used in Galicia, Bukovina, Bohemia and Moravia, Vienna, Salzburg, Tyrol and Vorarlberg. After it had been displaced from freight traffic by more powerful locomotives (classes

170 Year 170 ( CLXX) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Clarus and Cornelius (or, less frequently, year 923 ''Ab urbe condita''). The denomination 170 for this yea ...

, 270, 180, 80), it was reused for shunting service. After 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 ...

, the 73 class was divided among the successor states of the monarchy as follows: 233 locomotives went to the

Polish State Railways The Polish State Railways ( , abbr.: PKP S.A.) is a Polish state-owned holding company (legally a sole-shareholder company of the State Treasury) comprising the rail transport holdings of the country's formerly dominant namesake railway oper ...

(PKP) as class Tp15, 119 to the

Czechoslovak State Railways Czechoslovak State Railways (''Československé státní dráhy'' in Czech or ''Československé štátne dráhy'' in Slovak, often abbreviated to ČSD) was the state-owned railway company of Czechoslovakia. The company was founded in 1918 ...

(ČSD) as class 414.0, 25 to the

Ferrovie dello Stato Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane S.p.A. (; ; previously only Ferrovie dello Stato, hence the initialism FS) is Italy's national state-owned enterprise, state-owned railway holding company that manages transport, infrastructure, real estate service ...

(FS) as class 424, 17 to the

Romanian State Railways Romanian may refer to: *anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Romania **Romanians, an ethnic group **Romanian language, a Romance language ***Romanian dialects, variants of the Romanian language **Romanian cuisine, traditional ...

(CFR) and four units the railways of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes and later as series 133 to the

Yugoslav Railways Yugoslav Railways (; sr-Cyrl-Latn, Југословенске железнице, Jugoslovenske železnice, separator=" / "; ; ), with standard acronym ( in Cyrillic), was the state railway company of Yugoslavia, operational from the 1920s to t ...

(JDŽ). The Bundesbahn Österreich (BBÖ) retained 44 locomotives, the rest having been lost in the war. The ČSD withdrew the last machine of the 414.0 series from their inventory in 1969 and handed it over to the National Technical Museum in Prague. After the

Anschluss The (, or , ), also known as the (, ), was the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into Nazi Germany on 12 March 1938. The idea of an (a united Austria and Germany that would form a "German Question, Greater Germany") arose after t ...

of Austria by the German Reich, 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 ...

classified all 44 BBÖ machines as 55 5701 − 55 5744. In the course of the fighting during the Second World War, former 73s came to the DR from the ČSD (55 5745 − 55 5819), the PKP (55 5832 − 55 5864 and 55 5866 – 55 5897) and the JDŽ (55 5865). After the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, 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 ...

retained 38 locomotives, which were classified as class 55. The last machine, 55.5708 (kkStB 73.79), was taken out of service in 1964 and given to the collection of the Austrian Railway Museum. The locomotive is coupled to a tender from the kkStB tender class 36 in the Heizhaus railway museum, Strasshof an der Nordbahn. The ČSD locomotive 414.096, the last example of this series in use in the Czech Republic, which was nicknamed "Heligon", has been subjected to a general inspection in the Lužná u Rakovníka Railway Museum since 2009. In April 2019 she drove on her own for the first time in 50 years and hauled several nostalgic trains in the following season. The last Yugoslav machine, the former kkStB 73.372, is in the Slovenian Railway Museum in Ljubljana together with a tender for oil firing.

References

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External links

Austrian Steam Base
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kkstb 730

730 __NOTOC__ Year 730 ( DCCXXX) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Julian calendar. The denomination 730 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe ...

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