NEWS

At the beginning of the 1970s, Linz was still a veritable steam locomotive Eldorado with locomotives from the classes 50, 52, 77 and 93. Apart from the main or partly-overhauled engines, the locomotives tended to look rather dishevelled, being rusty and dirty. A group of young men - who later went on to found the Austrian Society for Railway History “Österreichische Gesellschaft für Eisenbahngeschichte” (ÖGEG) - began to overhaul the appearance of individual steam locomotives. One particularly colourful model was the 77.66. It received a “state railway livery”. The boiler was black, the water tanks and driver’s cab were green, the wheels were red and the wheel tyres and boiler rings glossy. In fact, this livery had never existed either on old Austrian locomotives or on locomotives from the time of the First Republic, but the young men liked it and soon railway enthusiasts and photographers began to take notice of the showpieces travelling along non-electrified routes in Upper Austria