Lokomotivfabrik Floridsdorf

Lokomotivfabrik Floridsdorf (Floridsdorf locomotive factory) was an Austrian locomotive works founded on 6 September 1869 that achieved a pre-eminent place amongst European locomotive builders thanks to the quality and diversity of its designs.

Common abbreviations for the company include Flor, WLF (Wiener Lokomotivfabrik Floridsdorf) and LOFAG (Lokomotivfabrik Floridsdorf AG).

Lokomotivfabrik Floridsdorf was the third factory of its type to emerge in Austria following the Lokomotivfabrik der Staatseisenbahngesellschaft (StEG, Vienna) and that of Georg Sigl, the Wiener Neustädter Lokomotivfabrik, both based in Vienna.

The site of the factory, which was founded in 1869, was a piece of open land in Floridsdorf near Vienna between the North railway and the Northwest railway. The generously scaled factory site was erected in 1870/71 by Bernhard Demmer – previously technical director with the StEG. In addition to the buildings needed for production and management, seven workers blocks were built with 117 flats.

Even whilst the factory was being built the company's management were busy looking for business and so, as early as 10 June 1871, the first locomotive, the HUMBOLDT was handed over to its owners, the ÖNWB.

In 1881 the first rack locomotive was designed and built. Its customer was the industrial railway of a Hungarian steelworks. This engine was designed as a narrow gauge locomotive (790 mm rail gauge). Because they were the only licence holders for the Abt rack system in the Danube monarchy, orders for locomotives for the Erzbergbahn and the Bosnia-Hercegovina State Railways (760mm gauge) went to Floridsdorf.

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