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This industrial combine was founded in 1923 to respond to the changed economic circumstances of the period following the Great War; the formation of the Deutsche Reichsbahn meant that orders for locomotives and rolling stock were in the hands of a single company, and orders would be larger than many of the smaller railway equipment manufacturers could easily handle. Responding to these challenges the Arnold Jung Lokomotivfabrik GmbH of Jungenthal and the Düsseldorf railway equipment manufacturer Carl Weyer und Compagnie amalgamated to form the core of VLW.

Securing the financial backing of the Deutsche Bank, VLW brought into its fold several additional railway equipment manufacturers during the later 1920s - Düsseldorfer Waggonfabrik in 1925, Augsburger Waggonfabrik in 1926 and Waggonfabrik Fuchs of Heidelberg in 1928. In 1929 the VLW was instrumental in rescuing two failing locomotive manufacturers, the Hohenzollern Locomotive Works of Düsseldorf and the Maschinenbau Gesellschaft Karlsruhe.

With the easing of Germany’s financial circumstances in the early 1930s VLW was quick to take advantage of improving export markets for modern railway equipment, winning large orders in South America and the Far East. It also continued its expansion at home. In 1932 it purchased the assets of the wagon-making firm Gebrüder Gastell of Mainz and the following year the Uerdingen Wagon Works. Two years later the firm of Gmeinder und Compagnie of Mosbach merged into VLW, substantially strengthening its position in the locomotive building sector.

During the latter part of the 1930s the Vereinigte Lokomotiv und Waggonfabriken branched out into related sectors of the mechanical engineering industry. In 1936 it formed the Motorenbau Werke of Kassel to manufacture petrol and diesel engines for the railway and automotive industry, and, in 1937 it formed the Schnellpressenfabrik of Heidelberg to specialise in the manufacture of high speed stamping presses. Early in 1939 it formed the Waggon und Maschinenbau GmbH of Donauwörth to undertake manufacture of defence equipment.


Subsidiaries of the firm include:

In Germany

Arnold Jung Lokomotivfabrik AG, Jungenthal (locomotives, cranes and machine tools)
Carl Weyer und Compagnie AG, Düsseldorf (railway equipment and components)
Gmeinder Getriebe und Maschinenfabrik AG, Mosbach (railway equipment and components)
Gmeinder Lokomotivenfabrik AG, Mosbach (locomotives)
Lokomotivfabrik Düsseldorf AG, Düsseldorf (locomotives)
Maschinenbau Karlsruhe AG, Karlsruhe (locomotives and industrial boilers)
Motorenbau Werke AG, Kassel (engine manufacture)
Schnellpressenfabrik AG, Heidelberg
Waggon und Maschinenbau GmbH, Donauwörth
Waggonfabrik Augsburg AG, Augsburg (railway wagons)
Waggonfabrik Düsseldorf AG, Düsseldorf (railway wagons)
Waggonfabrik Heidelberg AG, Heidelberg (railway wagons and equipment)
Waggonfabrik Mainz AG, Mainz (railway wagons and equipment)
Waggonfabrik Uerdingen AG, Uerdingen (railway wagons and equipment)

Orenstein und Koppel was founded on 1 April 1876 in Berlin by Benno Orenstein and Arthur Koppel. For the first fifteen years of its existence it functioned as an iron and mechanical engineering works, entering the railway construction field in 1892. It specialised in the manufacture of narrow-gauge field service locomotives – feldbahn – for the German army and light railways used in mining and industrial settings. In 1904 the firm marketed its first bucket chain trencher, powered by a steam engine. In 1908 it acquired the firm of Gerlach und König in Nordhausen, manufacturing there petrol and diesel industrial locomotives.

During the Great War the firm provided War Ministry with all manner of railway material, including thousands of feldbahn locomotives and narrow-gauge cars. In the aftermath of hostilities Orenstein and Koppel fell upon hard times, but from 1922 it found new markets in manufacturing heavy construction equipment – power shovels, excavators, graders, wheeled loaders, road rollers and tipping lorries. With easing of market conditions in the later 1920s it resumed large scale production of railway materials – including its traditional line of narrow-gauge industrial locomotives – but also equipment for Germany’s expanding system of rapid-transit urban railway lines. It further diversified its product line by undertaking the manufacture of industrial and shipboard cranes and, with the construction of the National Motorways, Orenstein und Koppel was in the forefront of developing many of the specialist excavators, trenchers and concrete-laying machines employed in their construction.

Unlike many German industrial firms Orenstein und Koppel chose to grow through internal expansion rather than acquisition and amalgamation of other companies. Nevertheless the firm did acquire, in the latter part of the 1930s, significant holdings in two outside firms which – while maintaining formal independence – might be considered subsidiaries. In 1934 it took a half-share in the capital of the Flensburger Fahrzeugbaugesellschaft, a manufacturer of fork lift trucks and other materials handling equipment, and in 1936 it acquired the Lübecker Maschinenfabrik, a diversified machine-building firm.

In addition to its manufacturing facilities at home Orenstein und Koppel maintains an international network of sales offices and agencies throughout the world, including offices in Cleito, Madrid, New York, Rio de Janeiro and Rosario.


Subsidiaries of the firm include:

In Germany

Orenstein und Koppel AG, Werke Babelsberg (locomotives and railway equipment)
Orenstein und Koppel AG, Werke Spandau (heavy construction equipment)
Orenstein und Koppel AG, Werke Templehof (industrial cranes and ancillary equipment)
Orenstein und Koppel AG, Werke Zehlendorf (road construction equipment)


Affiliates of the firm include:

In Germany

Flensburger Fahrzeugbaugesellschaft AG, Flensburg (materials handling equipment)
Lübecker Maschinenfabrik AG, Lübeck (machine building)

This concern was founded in 1869 to undertake the manufacture of locomotives; Bernhard Demmer was the first director of the works, a position he held until his death in 1902. In its early years the concern became one of the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s major manufacturers of locomotives, providing them to the Austrian Nordwestbahn and the Südbahngesellschaft among others. Hermann Gussenbauer became general director in succession to Bernhard Demmer in 1902, and he led the concern through the period of the Great War. Wartime profits were reinvested in the concern and it was able to weather the fall of the Empire and to resume production by late 1918; in 1922 the concern diversified into the construction of electric locomotives and steam-powered mechanical equipment, such as power shovels.

In the postwar period the concern concentrated on developing markets in the newly-formed states of southeastern Europe and to re-establish itself in the Russian market, with some success. Further growth came through consolidation and technical innovation. In 1926 the concern introduced high pressure stationary boilers to its product line, and adapted these to its locomotives as well. In 1930 the firm acquired the machine shops of the former Staats-Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft and consolidated its equipment with the main workshop in Floridsdorf; in the same year the firm acquired the shares of Lokomotivfabrik Georg Krauss, a competing firm based in Linz – which was subsequently developed as a branch factory for the production of locomotive components and boilers. Two years later the concern acquired the Lokomotivfabrik Sigl in Wiener Neustadt and developed that works as a centre for engineering and heavy steel fabrication.

Since the incorporation of the Austrian provinces the firm has taken advantage of the expanded national market for its products and has benefited from the adoption of standardisation techniques developed by the Reichsbahn.

In 1879 the engineer Fritz Schöttler founded in Diepholz a workshop for the manufacture and repair of agricultural equipment; over time it diversified into the production of milling equipment and, from 1890, the manufacture of small, narrow-gauge locomotives for agricultural and industrial use. In the wake of the Great War the firm found a growing market for its industrial locomotives both at home and in central Europe, and it also diversified into other areas of materials handling equipment including cranes.

This enterprise represents the union of two experienced manufacturers of locomotives, steam engines and other mechanical equipment – that of Krauss und Compagnie, founded in 1860 and that of Lokomotiv und Maschinenfabrik J. A. Maffei, founded in 1838 – an amalgamation consummated in 1931.

The Maffei concern began with the manufacture of steam engines for breweries, and branched out into the manufacture of locomotives in 1841 and for river steamers in 1847. In the years prior to the Great War it had manufactured hundreds of steam locomotives for the Bavarian railways and for many other railways both in Germany and abroad. Its products included boilers, steam engines, steam turbines for power stations, goods wagons, trams, lathes, drilling machines, hammers and other industrial equipment, in addition to locomotives. In the 1920s it had also diversified into the production of road rollers and cranes.

The Krauss firm concentrated its efforts on the manufacture of locomotives of all sorts – including industrial locomotives as well as narrow-gauge Feldbahn units for the Imperial Army; between its foundation in 1860 and 1905 it built no fewer than five thousand locomotives. In the years following the Great War it had absorbed several ironworks that had previously supplied it with components and completed its vertical integration.

The amalgamation of the two firms allowed a rationalisation of their facilities and permitted the enterprise’s entry into new fields of endeavour. Construction of locomotives was concentrated at the former Krauss works at Allach, where a complex of new assembly halls, workshops and support facilities were laid out; construction of these was complete by 1933. The former Maffei works at Hirschau saw the concentration of the enterprise’s non-locomotive activities – the manufacture of turbines, of machinery, and of boilers. The Hirschau works also saw production of the firm’s KM7 half-track prime mover, which it is building in large numbers for the Heer, the Luftwaffe and for export. The Bayerische Stahlformgießerei Krautheim und Compagnie, a subsidiary of the former Krauss firm, was transformed into the enterprise’s organic steel production arm, with both Siemens-Martin and Herault electric furnaces in its facilities in Sending.

The enterprise has continued its production of railway equipment since the amalgamation, investigating both the production of turbine locomotives for main-line employment and the manufacture of diesel-engine switching locomotives for the Reichsbahn.

While formally established in the year 1871, the roots of this enterprise go back to the year 1835, at which time the ironmaster Georg Egestorff opened a foundry and forge in the town of Linden, near the city of Hannover. This firm, known as Gießerei und Maschinenfabrik Georg Egestorff, manufactured iron products and the first locomotives to be constructed in the Kingdom of Hannover. In 1871 the heirs of the founder sold the firm to a syndicate of investors who reorganised the enterprise and adopted the current style.

In the latter part of the Nineteenth Century the enterprise grew as the demand for railway products within Germany and the world grew. The firm manufactured locomotives for many German railways and for export to Asia, Africa and South America – nearly forty percent of the enterprise’s production in this period were for export. In this time it also manufactured construction equipment, machine tools and other large steel constructions. In the years immediately prior to the Great War, it also began the production of motor cars and motor lorries, coming to specialise in the latter. During the period of hostilities the enterprise, like many others in Germany, produced munitions to the order of the War Ministry.

The need for railway reconstruction in the postwar period was vital to the enterprise’s survival in the early 1920s, though in the 1930s the concern came to rely less upon railways and locomotives. It continued the manufacture of motor cars and motor lorries, developing large road tractors for the carriage of heavy loads or for towing large aircraft. The production of agricultural tractors and self-propelled construction equipment were new lines of production that emerged in the late 1920s. At this same time the concern re-entered the market for defence equipment through the sale of motor vehicles to the expanding Heer and Luftwaffe. Under the direction of the Army Armament Office it has developed tracked towing vehicles for the Artillery and infantry carrying light tracked vehicles for the Panzergrenadiers.

The enterprise remains one of the largest manufacturing concerns in Lower Saxony.

This firm owes its existence to the decision of the Prussian Government to promulgate a new law respecting the construction of so-called “Kleinbahn”, or local narrow-gauge railways, distinct from the state-owned Royal Prussian Railways. Enacted in 1892, the Prussian Kleinbahn law permitted private companies to establish local railways – principally in agricultural districts – under simplified rules.

The Lenz firm was founded by a group of investors led by Friedrich Lenz and Georg von Bleichröder, with the backing of the Berliner Handels Gesellschaft. Initially the firm’s activities were concentrated in Mecklenburg, then a part of the Prussian province of Pomerania. In addition to constructing and operating local railway lines, the firm manufactured locomotives and other railway equipment at a factory in Stettin. By 1899 it had expanded its interests and had established engineering departments in Altona, Berlin, Breslau, Halle and Köln. Subsidiaries of the firm included such prominent local operators as the Ostdeutsche Eisenbahn Gesellschaft of Königsberg and the Westdeutsche Eisenbahn Gesellschaft of Karlsruhe.

Following the loss of some lines in the wake of the Great War, and the abandonment of others due to changing needs, the firm continues to operate twenty-five local railways across the nation, aggregating a total length of 950 kilometres, and continues to manufacture its equipment in its Stettin factory.

A manufacturer of railway wagons and other railway equipment dates from 1830 when Leopold Steinfurt opened a workshop for the production of agricultural implements in Königsberg, East Prussia. With the coming of the railways the firm progressively focused its efforts on the manufacture of railway equipment, operating as Maschinenbauanstalt Leopold Steinfurt under the direction of the founder and later his heirs. In 1880 the firm developed a new form of railway coupling which was adopted by the Prussian State Railways, this in turn brought a period of great prosperity for the firm as it not only sold its products to German railways but also licensed its designs to other manufacturers. In 1906 it was converted to a joint stock company under the current style, and open a new 80,000 square metre facility for the production of wagons  both for standard gauge and for narrow-gauge industrial railways. Couplings, switchgear and other railway accessories are also made.

Founded in 1895 as a subsidiary of the Deutsche Continental Gas Gesellschaft this firm was reorganised in 1905 with expanded capital and it adopted the current style. In 1912 the firm introduced its first series of insulated freight cars for the transport of meat and dairy products, which subsequently became its principal product. With other manufacturers it provides standardised freight cars to the Reichsbahn as well as providing railway equipment for foreign customers around the globe. The present work force comprises more than one thousand employees.

The antecedents of the present firm date back as far as 1830, when wheelwright Heinrich Christian Oelschläger opened his workshop in Hannover-Linden to undertake the assembly of gun carriages for the Royal Hannoverian Army. In 1857 his enterprising son, Friedrich Oelschläger, expanded the workshop’s efforts into the manufacture of coach carriages; individual parts such as wheels, drawbars, and axles were also made at this time. Subsequently the business passed to Wilhelm Buschbaum, who expanded the factory facilities and entered the field of railway wagon construction; this in turn led to the construction of tram cars, the first of which was delivered from the factory in 1891.

To sustain the growth of the concern it was reorganised in 1898 as a joint-stock company as the Hannoversche Holzverarbeitung and Waggonfabriken AG. At this time its business included production and recycling of all types of railway, tram and other wagons, the production and sale of all items required for equipping rail and other means of transport. In the decades before the outbreak of the Great War the company prospered, meeting the needs not only of Germany’s railway network but winning significant export orders abroad. In 1904 the company adopted its current style.

During the Great War the firm was ordered to concentrate on the production of aircraft for the Luftstreitkräfte, producing, inter alia, the CL.II, CL.III, CL.IV, and CL.V series of escort and ground attack fighters. Following the end of hostilities the Treaty of Versailles suspended all aircraft manufacture and the firm returned to its original business of railway stock manufacture.

The factory at Hannover-Linden has been expanded several times over the intervening years and has been re-equipped for the manufacture of all-steel railway wagons of the standard Reichsbahn type. It has been particularly successful in obtaining export contracts to South American states including Brazil and Peru.