NOHAB (Nydqvist & Holm AB) was a manufacturing company based in the city of

Trollhättan Trollhättan () is the 23rd-largest city in Sweden, the seat of Trollhättan Municipality, Västra Götaland County. It is situated by Göta älv, near the lake Vänern, and has a population of approximately 50,000 in the city proper. It is locate ...

, Sweden.

History

The company was founded by Antenor Nydqvist, Johan Magnus Lidström and Carl Olof Holm in 1847 as ''Trollhättans Mekaniska Verkstad'' as a manufacturer of

turbine A turbine ( or ) (from the Greek , ''tyrbē'', or Latin ''turbo'', meaning vortex) is a rotary mechanical device that extracts energy from a fluid flow and converts it into useful work. The work produced by a turbine can be used for generating e ...

s for hydraulic power plants. In 1865, the company made its 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, oil or, rarely, wood) to heat water in the locomot ...

and in 1912 the 1,000th locomotive steamed out of the factory. In Nohab's anniversary book "The Thousand Locomotive" from 1912, it's mentioned that the company also manufactured

davit Boat suspended from radial davits; the boat is mechanically lowered Gravity multi-pivot on Scandinavia'' file:Bossoir a gravité.jpg, Gravity Roller Davit file:Davits-starbrd.png, Gravity multi-pivot davit holding rescue vessel on North Sea ferr ...

s for

Titanic RMS ''Titanic'' was a British passenger liner, operated by the White Star Line, which sank in the North Atlantic Ocean on 15 April 1912 after striking an iceberg during her maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City, United ...

's lifeboats. In 1916 the company was reconstituted as a limited company and became NOHAB. In 1920, NOHAB received an order of 1000 locomotives from

Soviet Russia The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Russian SFSR or RSFSR ( rus, Российская Советская Федеративная Социалистическая Республика, Rossíyskaya Sovétskaya Federatívnaya Soci ...

. Only 500 were delivered between 1921 and 1924. In 1924, Nohab built three steam locomotives,

4-6-0 A 4-6-0 steam locomotive, under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives by wheel arrangement, has four leading wheels on two axles in a leading bogie and six powered and coupled driving wheels on three axles with the abse ...

ones for with the respective

builder's plate A builder's plate is usually a metal plate that is attached to railway locomotives and rolling stock, bogies, construction equipment, trucks, automobiles, large household appliances, bridges, ships and more. It gives such information as the name of ...

s #1727, #1728 and #1729 for Estrada de Ferro Rio d'Ouro in the state of

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a b ...

(Brazil). According to E.F. Rio d'Ouro's surviving records, they would not have arrived in Brazil before 1926. In 1930, NOHAB started manufacturing the

Bristol Jupiter The Bristol Jupiter was a British nine-cylinder single-row piston radial engine built by the Bristol Aeroplane Company. Originally designed late in World War I and known as the Cosmos Jupiter, a lengthy series of upgrades and developments turn ...

aircraft engine, under licence from the

Bristol Aeroplane Company The Bristol Aeroplane Company, originally the British and Colonial Aeroplane Company, was both one of the first and one of the most important British aviation companies, designing and manufacturing both airframes and aircraft engines. Notable a ...

. A couple of years later the aircraft engine division of NOHAB and ''AB Svenska järnvägsverkstäderna'' (Swedish Railway Workshop Limited), in

Linköping Linköping () is a city in southern Sweden, with around 105,000 inhabitants as of 2021. It is the seat of Linköping Municipality and the capital of Östergötland County. Linköping is also the episcopal see of the Diocese of Linköping (Church ...

, formed the aircraft manufacturer

SAAB Saab or SAAB may refer to: Brands and enterprises * Saab Group, a Swedish aerospace and defence company, formerly known as SAAB, and later as Saab AB ** Datasaab, a former computer company, started as spin off from Saab AB * Saab Automobile, a fo ...

. 1930-1936 they built the Ljungström steam turbine locomotives. In 1948 NOHAB supplied diesel railcars to the Portuguese Railways (CP), in both (the '' Série 0100'') and versions (the '' Série 9100''). In the 1950s, NOHAB started manufacturing diesel locomotives under licence from

Electro-Motive Division Progress Rail Locomotives, doing business as Electro-Motive Diesel (EMD), is an American manufacturer of diesel-electric locomotives, locomotive products and diesel engines for the rail industry. The company is owned by Caterpillar through its sub ...

General Motors The General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. It is the largest automaker in the United States and ...

. The

Danish State Railways DSB, an abbreviation of ''Danske Statsbaner'' (, ''Danish State Railways''), is the largest Danish train operating company, and the largest in Scandinavia. While DSB is responsible for passenger train operation on most of the Danish railways, goo ...

were a major customer. 35 Di 3 were also delivered to the

Norwegian State Railways Vygruppen, branded as Vy, is a government-owned railway company which operates most passenger train services and many bus services in Norway. The company is owned by the Norwegian Ministry of Transport. Its sub-brands include Vy Buss coach se ...

. In addition to locomotives and aircraft NOHAB was a major manufacturer of turbines for power plants and well known for medium size ship engines. NOHAB also manufactured the hulls for the

S-tank The Stridsvagn 103 (Strv 103), also known as the Alternative S and S-tank, is a Swedish post-World War II main battle tank, designed and manufactured in Sweden. "Strv" is the Swedish military abbreviation of ''stridsvagn'', Swedish for chariot an ...

. In the 1970s, the diesel engine manufacturing facility was sold to

Wärtsilä Wärtsilä Oyj Abp (), trading internationally as Wärtsilä Corporation, is a Finnish company which manufactures and services power sources and other equipment in the marine and energy markets. The core products of Wärtsilä include technol ...

and became known as Wärtsilä Nohab. The company went

bankrupt Bankruptcy is a legal process through which people or other entities who cannot repay debts to creditors may seek relief from some or all of their debts. In most jurisdictions, bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debt ...

in 1979.

NOHAB in Hungary

In the early 1960s twenty NOHAB diesel engines were built for

Hungarian State Railways Hungarian State Railways ( hu, Magyar Államvasutak, MÁV) is the Hungarian national railway company, with divisions "MÁV START Zrt." (passenger transport), "MÁV-Gépészet Zrt." (maintenance), "MÁV-Trakció Zrt." and "MÁV Cargo Zrt" (freig ...

(MÁV), but due to the

Iron Curtain The Iron Curtain was the political boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991. The term symbolizes the efforts by the Soviet Union (USSR) to block itself and its s ...

, further imports were stopped in favour of

M62 locomotive The M62 is a Soviet-built diesel locomotive for heavy freight trains, exported to many Eastern Bloc countries as well as to Cuba, North Korea and Mongolia. Beside the single locomotive M62 also twin versions 2M62 and three-section versions 3M62 hav ...

s made in

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

. The Swedish locomotives were classified by MÁV as type M61 and proved versatile, highly reliable as well as economical to run. They were even used to haul non-stoppable radioactive waste transport trains from the

Paks Nuclear Power Plant The Paks Nuclear Power Plant ( hu, Paksi atomerőmű), located from the small town of Paks, central Hungary, is the first and only operating nuclear power station in Hungary. In 2019, its four reactors produced more than 50% of Hungary's ele ...

to Soviet reprocessing facilities, despite the availability of Soviet-made M62 engines. The M61 type has achieved a

cult status A cult following refers to a group of fans who are highly dedicated to some person, idea, object, movement, or work, often an artist, in particular a performing artist, or an artwork in some medium. The lattermost is often called a cult classic. ...

in Hungary because they were used to haul most of express trains to holiday resorts around the

Lake Balaton Lake Balaton () is a freshwater lake in the Transdanubian region of Hungary. It is the largest lake in Central Europe, and one of the region's foremost tourist destinations. The Zala River provides the largest inflow of water to the lake, and th ...

region. Their images became closely associated with teenage summer camps, exploration and family recreation during the Socialism era, when foreign travel was highly restricted for the average citizen. Today, the M61s are no longer in regular service with MÁV, most were scrapped but some were saved. One is still run on charter duties by a preservation group in Hungary and Romania and another one hauls track-laying machinery trains in the Budapest region. NOHAB M61

References

External links

NOHAB Locomotive Site

NOHAB pictures from many countries

Nohab Steam Locos in Brazil
(in Brazilian

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

) {{Authority control Defunct companies of Sweden Locomotive manufacturers of Sweden Aircraft engine manufacturers of Sweden