Hungarian Steam Locomotives

In the identification system of locomotives most widely used the first capital letter symbolizes the number of powered (coupled) wheelsets: B=2, C=3, D=4 or E=5 axles. The figures before and after the capital letter mean the number of the front and rear supporting wheelsets: 1 or 2.
The following small letters represent the working principle of the locomotive: n is for saturated steam and h is for superheated steam. The figure next gives you the number of cylinders for the loco: 2, 3 or 4.
The last small letter t is for tank locomotives while z is for tender engines.
SIDE A

MÁV CLASS 424
This class is said to be the most well known and most popular Hungarian locomotive type. The first units of this 4-8-0 superheated twin family had left the assembly shop of the Mávag factory in the year 1924 and the manufacture of the class lasted until the late fifties.
The MÁV needed a versatile multi-purpose locomotive type equally suitable to haul express, passenger or cargo trains. This type was designed to meet these requirements. The introduction of the class had another importance being a noticeable step in the field of the standardization of parts.
Because of the large grate area the flat fire-box boiler had to be placed high above the locomotive frame, the highest in the Hungarian practice. Thus this locomotive type gained its characteristical and monumental outlines. Years later some minor modifications has been carried out: star-shaped blowers, twin stacks and smoke deflectors has been applied. A number of these locomotives has been fitted by equipment necessary for the push-pull service. The corresponding 8 wheel tenders are of series G or J.
Arrangement: 2D h2
Axle-load: 14 t.
(That's why the class can be widely used!)
Maximum permitted speed: 90 km/h.

MÁV CLASS 324
These locomotives had been built originally for the freight service although they were used recently as passenger engines. Their first design was a compound type when the Engineering Factory of Hungarian State Railways had started to launch them. The later variants were superheated ones and also the Brotan type boilers were applied. Finally all the existing locos have been rebuilt as superheated twins.
The original 6 wheel tenders has been replaced by more spacious 8 wheel tenders of scrapped engines for the locomotives used for push-pull service.
Arrangement: 1C1 h2
Axle-load: 13,9 t.
Maximum permitted speed: 75 km/h.
We can hear the last serviceable locomotive of the class, while rearranging other cold locomotives.

LOCOMOTIVE MÁV CLASS 377
This has been the most widely spread tank locomotive type, amounting to several hundred in numbers, used on Hungarian railway side-lines, as well as on private and industrial railway lines. It has fulfilled all kinds of tracktion jobs very well.
It has been built by different firms (Engineering Factory of the Hungarian State Railways, Krauss-Linz, StEG-Vienna, Weitzer-Arad) during the last 15 years of the 19th century.
Due to the high numbers made, several of them can still be seen in actual operation at different industrial factories.
Arrangement: Cn 2t
Axle load: 9,9 t.
Maximum permitted speed: 45 km/h.
On this recording the sound of the loco No. 377.269, owned by the Sarkad Sugar Factory, can be heard.

MÁV CLASS 411
The locomotives of the class 411 joined the MÁV stock in 1947 in a large number. These locomotives had been built by various U.S. manufacturers (Alco, Baldwin and Lima) as a standard type for military purposes. The MÁV had carried out different modifications according to the domestic practice, that's how the locomotives got their present shape.
The class was performing the bulk of freight traffic, further the locomotives were used also for regular passenger traffic in the sixties.
Arrangement: 1D h2
Axle-load: 16 t.
Maximum permitted speed: 75 km/h.
One of the few last existing locomotives performs level-marshalling duties on the recording.

MÁV CLASS 520
Thousands of locomotives belonging to this class were built in 1943-44 by several locomotive manufacturers of Europe for military purposes of the German Empire. Therefore the most practical, the most simple but reliable solutions were used in the manufacture. The "austerity" locomotives were familiar nearly on all railways of Europe.
Arrrangement: 1E h2
Axle-load: 15 t.
Maximum permitted speed: 80 km/h.
SIDE B

MÁV CLASS 375
This tank locomotive built by the Mávag is one of the class that featured the branch-lines in Hungary till the recent times. The first locomotives of the class were built in 1907. There had been three basic variants with different working principles and boiler solutions and standardized in the later years as superheated twin engines with top-bar firebox boilers.
The class has been used also on the main lines with light trains for its good performance. The locomotive No. 375.1032 of this type was the very last steam engine manufactured by the Mávag factory in 1959.
Arrangment: 1C1 h2t
Axle-load: 10,7 t.
Maximum permitted speed: 60 km/h.

GySEV LOCOMOTIVE NO. 124
The Győr-Sopron-Ebenfurth Railway was numbering her locomotives not in classes as usual but in individual number-groups. Thus the engines 121-124 are identical to the MÁV class 375. The locomotive No. 124 is a former MÁV locomotive which was working under MÁV number prior to joining the GySEV stock.

MÁV CLASS 370
The first units of the class were built in 1898 in the workshops of the Engineering Factory of Hungarian State Railways under the type designation 43.
The locomotive is a compound engine, the only existing one of this kind.
The characteristic throbbing sound comes from the compound working principle.
Arrangement: C n2
Axle-load: 10,3 t.
Maximum permitted speed: 50 km/h.
The last survivers of the class work at the Nagymányok Briquet Factory. You hear the locomotive No. 370.011 moving slowly from the sidings towards the factory.

LOCOMOTIVE MÁV 91,001
This locomotive was a sole unit of her class manufactured by Krauss in Linz in the year 1914 for the Dombóvár Sleeper-Impregnating Plant. Shunting work within the plant could not be performed by standard steam locomotives because of fire-danger. That is why this fireless engine has been used for the last 70 years. The "boiler" - a steam tank - of the loco is filled with pressurized hot water from the stationery boiler of the plant time by time and the steam generating from this develops the tractive force.
Arrangement: B n2
Axle-load: 13,2 t.
Maximum permitted speed: 25 km/h.
The locomotive on the record performs her regular shunting duties.

BUDAPEST GAS-WORKS LOCOMOTIVE NO. 11
The famous Henschel Locomotiv Factory built two shunting locomotives for the Gas-works in 1913.
Arrangmenet: B n2t
On the recording the locomotive performs her regular shunting duties with a rake of wagons loaded by coal.

ÓZD METALURGICAL WORKS LOCOMTIVE NO. 4.
The Ózd Metalurgical Works has an expanded standard gauge railway network for it's own industrial purposes. The locomotives have been numbered in the sequence of purchase; some numbers of withdrawn engines having been used later again independently of the type.
The large amount of slag produced by the furnaces of the Works located in a broad valley must be transported onto the slag-heaps in the neighbouring valleys. The railway track could have been built only with steep gradients (105%) where cog-wheel traction system has been used. Three of the rack locomotives for this service were built in Winterthur in the year 1907.
You may hear one of them the No. 4 climbing up on the gradient forwarding a loaded slag-laddle wagon. The characteristic tune comes from the joint work of the two separate mechanism, i.e. the adhesion and the rack.
Arrangement: C n2zt
Axle-load: 10,9 t.
Maximum permitted speed: 35 km/h adhesion; 12 km/h rack

BORSODNÁDASD STEEL-PLATE FACTORY LOCOMOTIVE NO. 8 AND 10.
After repeated replacements of her boilers the vintage locomotives No. 8 and 10 out of the original three engines are still in the service on the industrial railway of the Factory. They have been built by the Sigl Locomotive Factory in Wiener-Neustadt in the year 1870 for this metre-gauge line.
Arrangement: C n2(t)
Originally the locomotive had been delivered as a tank engine and the tender was added later.
You may hear the locomotive working on the line.

BORSODNÁDASD STEEL-PLATE FACTORY LOCOMOTIVE NO. 30
The line service of the industrial railway between Borsodnádasd and Ózd is performed mostly by this locomotive of Mávag type 96, originally for 760 mm gauge and re-gauged for metre-gauge service. This is the last unit of the type having been built in large batches basicly for the widely spread narrowgauge railway system in Yougoslavia. The locomotive is a superheated one, a unique feature in the big family of narrow-gauge engines in this country.
Arrangement: D1 h2
Axle-load: 8 t.
Maximum permitted speed: 35 km/h.
The recording was made on the open line.

MÁV CLASS 490
The most widely spread locomotive type of the Hungarian narrow-gauge railways is the type 70 of the Mávag factory in Budapest. This tank engine having been built between 1905 and 1949 could be found on the narrow-gauge lines of neighboring countries too.
Arrangement: D n2t
Axle-load: 5,6 t.
You may hear the locomotive 490,053 the one of the last two survivers on the line of the Szob Stone Quarry Railway climbing on a long gradient and approaching a line siding.

MÁV CLASS 394
The narrow-gauge locomotives of type 106 were built by the Mávag factory and its foregoer in a large number. They were familiar on the different gauges but mainly on the 760 mm gauge lines of the MÁV, the Department of Economy Railways and other agricultural, forestry and industrial railways. The last two units of the type, the 394,023 and 394,057 form a mainstay of the Széchenyi Museum Railway at Nagycenk.
Arrangement: C n2t
Axle-load: 3,4 t.
Maximum permitted speed: 25 km/h.
On the record the locomotive 394,057 approaches in a sharp curve with train and starts to climb a gradient.
Made by: Péter Kosársky, Tibor Papp
Design: Dezső Kiss
Photo: Dr. Zsolt Károlyi
Hungaroton recording
Made in Hungary 1983
The record can be played with a stereo or mono cartridge
Labels: Avant Garde Project, Dezső Kiss, field recordings, Found Sounds, Péter Kosársky, Tibor Papp, Zsolt Károlyi





