Historic Railway, Frankfurt

The Historic Railway, Frankfurt (Historische Eisenbahn Frankfurt) or HEF is a German museum railway in Frankfurt am Main. The society was founded in 1978 and its aim is the preservation of historic, valuable railway materiel in working order, especially steam locomotives, as technical and cultural monuments.

Since 1979 there has been a regular museum service several weekends a year on the tracks of the Frankfurt Harbour Railway (Frankfurter Hafenbahn) between the halts of Mainkur, Eiserner Steg and Frankfurt-Griesheim. Since 1981 the society has organised the Königstein railway festival (Bahnhofsfest Königstein) every year at Whitsun, when the Königsteiner Bahn between Frankfurt-Höchst and Königstein im Taunus is operated. In addition vehicles of the Historic Railway, Frankfurt are used in special services throughout Germany.

The society has several operational locomotives. The most famous and historically important is the DRG Class 01 express train, steam locomotive, number 01 118.

The locomotive was built by Krupp in Essen in 1934 under works number 1415 and is the only one of its class still in existence today that has seen unbroken operational service. It was delivered on 18 December 1934 and officially taken over by the Deutsche Reichsbahn on 24 December 1934. The purchase price for the engine and tender was 208,597 Reichsmarks. It began its duties on 2 January 1935 and in March 1939 it was fitted with an inductive train control (PZB).

Over the course of time, the locomotive was stationed in various central German locomotive sheds (Betriebswerke. After the end of the Second World War it was left in the Soviet Zone of Occupation and was incorporated in the Deutsche Reichsbahn's fleet in East Germany, where it was given the computer number 01 2118-6 in 1970.

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