electric locos
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As late as the 1990s Austria had one of the most diverse and interesting electric locomotive fleets in the world with a few locos dating back as far as the 1930s. Then came the Siemens Taurus, sweeping away all the old machines and leaving only a couple of other classes in widespread use on the network.
Austria was a pioneer of railway electrification with the first local railway electrified as early as 1883 and the first high-voltage single-phase AC electrification on the Mariazellerbahn, begun in 1907.

In 1911 15kV 16.67Hz single-phase AC was adopted for the cross-border Mittenwaldbahn and subsequently became the standard for Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Norway and Sweden. By the late 1930s most of the network in western Austria had been electrified and this was followed after WWII by the progressive electrification of the main lines and more important secondary lines in the rest of the country. The majority of the network is now electrified, including all major routes, but the process is not yet complete with several schemes still in the pipeline today.

The earliest electric locomotives generally had body mounted motors, often with rod drives and wheel arrangements based on steam locomotive practice. By the 1930s, bogie locomotives were becoming more common but these designs had coupled bogies which transmitted all the tractive forces. The body was little more than a box on top that sheltered the crew and equipment from the elements. It wasn't until the 1950s that the modern arrangement of a load bearing body with independent bogies was adopted, firstly in the Class 1041 Bo-Bos and then in all subsequent designs.

The rapid technical advances of the inter-war and immediate post-war periods meant that after a few years any particular class was outdated, so a new design was put into production until it too became outdated. By the early 1960s ÖBB had a plethora of different classes of electric loco, none of which numbered more than 50 locos and most of which were much smaller.

The rapid post-war expansion of the electrified network led to the introduction of the first standard type, the Class 1042 of 1963. Although 257 were built, they were needed to work the newly wired lines and few of the older locos were withdrawn as a result.

The next standard class, the thyristor-controlled Class 1044 of 1976 was also built in large numbers, totalling 217 locos and led to the gradual replacement of all the pre-war and wartime designs by the mid 1990s.

Then came the Taurus, 380 of them in total, built from 2000 onwards, resulting in the relatively rapid withdrawal of virtually everything built before the 1042s and a number of smaller, more modern classes as well.

The current scene is dominated by the Taurus, Classes 1016/1116/1216, with Class 1144 still working a significant number of secondary services. A few class 1042 are still in traffic but probably won't last much longer.

All the above relates to the ÖBB fleet but DB electric locos have also been part of the Austrian scene with various classes being seen over the decades. The liberalisation of the freight market has seen many different freight operators using ÖBB metals in recent years, almost all of them using electric locos. This gallery includes all electric locos photographed in Austria irrespective of ownership.
page : 1008
WK000 : 2024-02-29
CS000 : 2022-07-02
CK000 : 2022-07-02
GS000 : 2022-07-25
GK000 : 2022-07-25








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