The Hohenzollern Locomotive Works (Aktiengesellschaft für Lokomotivbau Hohenzollern) was a German

locomotive A locomotive or engine is a rail transport vehicle that provides the Power (physics), motive power for a train. If a locomotive is capable of carrying a payload, it is usually rather referred to as a multiple unit, Motor coach (rail), motor ...

-building company which operated from 1872 to 1929. The Hohenzollern works was a manufacturer of

standard gauge A standard-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge of . The standard gauge is also called Stephenson gauge (after George Stephenson), International gauge, UIC gauge, uniform gauge, normal gauge and European gauge in Europe, and SGR in Ea ...

engines and about 400

fireless locomotives A fireless locomotive is a type of locomotive which uses reciprocating engines powered from a reservoir of Pneumatics, compressed air or steam, which is filled at intervals from an external source. They offer advantages over conventional steam lo ...

as well as

diesel locomotive A diesel locomotive is a type of railway locomotive in which the prime mover is a diesel engine. Several types of diesel locomotives have been developed, differing mainly in the means by which mechanical power is conveyed to the driving whee ...

s of various

rail gauges In rail transport, track gauge (in American English, alternatively track gage) is the distance between the two rails of a railway track. All vehicles on a rail network must have wheelsets that are compatible with the track gauge. Since many d ...

. The company was founded on 8 June 1872 in Grafenberg near

Düsseldorf Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in th ...

. The firm produced around 4,600 locomotives. After the increasingly critical situation in the German locomotive building industry around 1929 the works was closed in November 1929. The Hohenzollern AG had hoped in vain for follow-on orders for the DRG Class 80 from the

Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft The ''Deutsche Reichsbahn'', also known as the German National Railway, the German State Railway, German Reich Railway, and the German Imperial Railway, was the German national railway system created after the end of World War I from the regiona ...

(DRG). Locomotive number 80 030 in the

Bochum-Dahlhausen Railway Museum The Eisenbahnmuseum Bochum-Dahlhausen is a railway museum situated south of the city of Bochum in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was founded by DGEG, the German Railway History Company in 1977 and is based in a locomotive depot ...

was one of the last that had been built by the Lokomotivbau Hohenzollern and is preserved today in photograph-grey livery. The last locomotives had left the factory in September 1929; it was then immediately torn down.

Fireless steam locomotives

Hohenzollern built a large number of fireless locomotives, including some

articulated An articulated vehicle is a vehicle which has a permanent or semi-permanent pivot joint in its construction, allowing it to turn more sharply. There are many kinds, from heavy equipment to buses, trams and trains. Steam locomotives were someti ...

fireless locomotives with a cab at each end. Hohenzollern's fireless locomotives were unusual in having inside cylinders. The German for fireless steam locomotive is ''Dampfspeicherlokomotive'', meaning steam storage locomotive. Each locomotive had two 2-axle bogies. On no. 1685 only one axle was powered but, on the others, two axles were powered. For an explanation of wheel arrangements see:

AAR wheel arrangement The AAR wheel arrangement system is a method of classifying locomotive (or unit) wheel arrangements that was developed by the Association of American Railroads. Essentially a simplification of the European UIC classification, it is widely used in ...

. Nos. 1685 and 2107 (which were designed for use in mines) had air-cooled

condensers __NOTOC__ Condenser may refer to: Heat transfer * Condenser (heat transfer), a device or unit used to condense vapor into liquid. Specific types include: ** HVAC air coils ** Condenser (laboratory), a range of laboratory glassware used to remove ...

to condense the exhaust steam.

Diesel locomotives

Hohenzollern supplied a diesel-mechanical locomotive to the Russian State Railways in the 1920s. This had a

constant-mesh gearbox A manual transmission (MT), also known as manual gearbox, standard transmission (in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States), or stick shift (in the United States), is a multi-speed motor vehicle transmission system, where gear changes ...

with an individual

electromagnetic clutch Electromagnetic clutches operate electrically but transmit torque mechanically. This is why they used to be referred to as electro-mechanical clutches. Over the years, EM became known as electromagnetic versus electro-mechanical, referring more a ...

to engage each gear. Around the same time, Russian State Railways also took delivery of a

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

, class E el-2, designed in Russia by Professor Lomonosov. Work on this locomotive was started by Hohenzollern but, for political reasons, it was later transferred to

Maschinenfabrik Esslingen Maschinenfabrik Esslingen (ME), was a German engineering firm that manufactured locomotives, tramways, railway wagons, roll-blocks, technical equipment for the railways, (turntables and traversers), bridges, steel structures, pumps and boilers. ...

References

Sources

* ''The Locomotive Engineers' Pocket Book 1934'', (UK), publisher unknown, page 286 * ''The Industrial Railway Record'', published by the

Industrial Railway Society The Industrial Railway Society was founded in the United Kingdom in 1949 as the "Birmingham Locomotive Club – Industrial Locomotive Information Section". It is devoted to the study of all aspects, and all gauges, of privately owned industrial ...

, ISSN 0537-5347, no. 166 (2001), page 10 and no. 170 (2002), pp 216–218

External links

List of preserved Hohenzollern locomotives

* ttp://www.werkbahn.de/eisenbahn/lokbau/hohenzol.htm Hohenzollern AG at www.lokhersteller.de {{Authority control Defunct locomotive manufacturers of Germany Manufacturing companies based in Düsseldorf Transport in North Rhine-Westphalia

Fireless steam locomotives

Diesel locomotives

See also

References

Sources

External links