Beuth-Locomotive

Borsig's first steam locomotive was built in 1841 according to an American design. It didn’t take long, however, before he had developed building plans of his own. The first steam engine realized with those plans was called “Beuth”, and came with the serial number 24. It was first displayed at the Berlin Industrial Exhibition in 1844 and then consigned to the Berlin-Anhalt Railway Company, where it was in service for 20 years before being scrapped. 71 of this very successful type engine were built – already a kind of serial production.
After at first finding it difficult to compete in the market against English and American locomotives, the Beuth entered a competition against an English Stephenson locomotive in the “Chorin Race” – and won; this led to its being widely used across all of northern Germany. The cupola-like upright boiler over the firebox and longtube boiler, as well as the large drive axel between the two small running axels, are typical characteristics of all early Borsig designs. Of the 68 locomotives ordered by the Prussian government, 67 were built at the Borsig-Works within ten years.
On the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the Borsig-Works in 1912, a replica of the original “Beuth” was built. At the behest of Oskar von Millers (1855–1934), this fabrication was sent to the Deutsches Museum in Munich but subsequently returned to Berlin in 1984 on permanent loan to the former Museum for Transport and Technology – the Deutsches Technikmuseum of today.