Schöma is a company based in Diepholz, Germany, specialising in the construction of small

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. After Christoph Schöttler left his father's business, the Diepholzer Maschinenfabrik Fritz Schöttler (DIEMA), because of disagreements about the product range, in 1930 he founded his own machine factory, the Christoph Schöttler Maschinenfabrik GmbH, on the former premises of DIEMA. The company was first called SCHÖMAG for short, which was changed a few years later to Schöma. In the early years, Schöttler continued the production of mill machines and tractors, but soon started building rail vehicles. Schöma soon became one of the most important manufacturers of

field railway A , or , is the German term for a narrow-gauge field railway, usually not open to the public, which in its simplest form provides for the transportation of agricultural, forestry () and industrial raw materials such as wood, peat, stone, earth an ...

s, mine railways, narrow-gauge

s, and railway service vehicles. They also developed their own engines and transmissions, as well as a

drive shaft A drive shaft, driveshaft, driving shaft, tailshaft (Australian English), propeller shaft (prop shaft), or Cardan shaft (after Girolamo Cardano) is a component for transmitting mechanical power (physics), power and torque and rotation, usually ...

for diesel locomotives. At the beginning of the 1960s, Schöma developed, in cooperation with the

German Federal Railways The Deutsche Bundesbahn or DB (German Federal Railway) was formed as the state railway of the newly established Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) on 7 September 1949 as a successor of the Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft (DRG). The DB remained ...

, the heavy-duty Klv 53, and in the 1970s manufactured the Klv 54 vehicles. In 1970, the construction of

tunnel locomotive A tunnel is an underground passageway, dug through surrounding soil, earth or rock, and enclosed except for the entrance and exit, commonly at each end. A Pipeline transport, pipeline is not a tunnel, though some recent tunnels have used ...

s began; today they make up the majority of the locomotives produced by the company. They are used for the construction of

subway Subway, Subways, The Subway, or The Subways may refer to: Transportation * Subway, a term for underground rapid transit rail systems * Subway (underpass), a type of walkway that passes underneath an obstacle * Subway (George Bush Interconti ...

s, traffic tunnels, or supply tunnels. In addition to the tunnel locomotives, Schöma also manufactures shunting locomotives and locomotives for island railways in normal and narrow gauge. On the day of the 75th anniversary of the company, the 6000th locomotive was delivered. Many locomotives are one-offs. The company also handles the conversion of used locomotives. Since May 19, 2011 a Schöma-Feldbahn locomotive, built in 1943 with an attached peat car, has sat in the middle of a roundabout on the highway between Vechta and Damme in Lohne (Oldenburg) - about seven kilometers away from Diepholz - where for decades peat was transported from the Südlohner Moor on the foothills of the Dammer mountains. As of 2012, the fourth generation of the Schöttler family took over control of the company.

Examples

Sources

* Andreas Christopher, Ulrich Völz: ''Die Feldbahn, Band 7: 75 Jahre SCHÖMA'', Ingrid Zeunert, Gifhorn 2005, (Christoph Schöttler Maschinenfabrik 1930–2005) * Dieter Holtbrügger:" Qualität made in Diepholz." In: ''eisenbahn-magazin'' 12/2012, S. 38f. * Georg Thomas: "Gefragte Loks". In: ''Niedersächsische Wirtschaft'' 02/2014 S. 28

External links

Schöma corporate website
Manufacturing companies of Germany {{Germany-company-stub