A short History of the Meiningen Works

In 1902 the Meiningen Railway Shop until then titled Secondary Workshop of the Erfurt Disrict Railway Inspection was declared Main Railway Workshop.

Since the premises opposite Meiningen station were unsuitable for further extension,  activities commenced in 1910 to build a new railway workshop at the buttom of the Drachenberg hill.

Almost 7m cu.ft. of earth had to be moved to gain a level area of about 1.3m sq.ft..

After 3 ½ years of construction work the new Works were inaugurated 2^nd March 1914.

In the first stage the new assembly comprised the new boiler shop, mechanical workshop, erecting shop, spare storage, the old foundry, wagon shop, indoor pool, canteen and office building.

By 1914 the number of staff had increased to 800 and increased even further to 1,600 in 1918.

The shops were equipped with cranes of 40 and 60 tons lifting capacity to cope with the heavy passenger and goods engines of the Royal Prussian State Railway in the Erfurt area.

In 1920 the previously independent state railways of Prussia, Bavaria etc. were amalgated into the centralised Deutsche Reichsbahn and the various railway shops were titled Reichsbahn Works.

As early as 1916 further extensions of the Meiningen Works started to be continued after the Great War. Between 1924 and 1926 the present locomotive erection hall fitted with cranes of 80 tons capacity, part of the round house and a new foundry were constructed. At the same time the northern part of the old erecting shop became the new boiler shop.

In 1925/26 first batches of 10 each of the new Standard Classes 01/02 (express passenger) and 43/44 (heavy goods) were put into service and allocated to Meiningen Works for their routine overhauls. This was the beginning of decades of repairing and overhauling of heavy Standard Classes in Meiningen

Until 1927 work on wagons and carriages was carried out too at Meiningen but this was passed on to nearby Gotha Works. By now the workforce counted 2,000 heads.

The end of WW II saw the Meiningen Works still entirely intact with the result that is assumed great importance for the Deutsche Reichsbahn in Eastern Germany.

1^st May 1947 already marked the 1,000^th locomotive outshopped after the last war.

Until the late Seventies Meiningen Works were very much dedicated to steam locomotives but due to the withdrawal of mainline steam progressive changes could be observed inside the shops.

The routine overhaul of freight wagons of Ucv and Uscv type started in 1981.

For the first time in any Reichsbahn Works a production line for new locomotives was set up at Meiningen resulting in the total production of 202 fireless locomotives of FLC type (0-6-0) for industrial shunting duties between 1984 and 1988.

More investments in machining facilities and the steel construction shop enabled Meiningen Works to manufacture bogies for electric railcars in annual series.

1993 and 1994 saw the delivery of two high performance  rotary snow ploughs of  HB 1600 type to Deutsche Bahn AG. These devices are self-propelled and are designed to clear ICE train high speed tracks at 75 mph.  

Additionally one rotary plough HB 1200, two GKW 12 for Russia and six BA 850 fitted with remote control for Deutsche Bahn AG were delivered between 1993 and 1996.

Since 1998 Meiningen Steam Locomotive Works has been repairing  SG and NG locomotives for Deutsche Bahn AG, preservation and touristic railways at home and abroad.

Other Fields of Business are

plus the manufacture of  new locomotive type boilers

This range of activities is extended successfully even more by

In recent years Meiningen Steam Locomotive Works has become particularly attractive to railway enthusiasts German and foreign due to the Meiningen Steam Locomotive Days organized every summer.

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 © 2000 by Dampflokwerk Meiningen