Diesel locomotive (Diesel-Klose-Sulzer)
Locomotora diésel (Diesel-Klose-Sulzer)
- Date
- 1912 · confidence medium
- Place
- Winterthur, Zurich, Switzerland
- Credited to
- Rudolf Diesel, Adolf Klose and Sulzer
- Field
- Movement
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
The first diesel-engined locomotive tested in service, built by Sulzer and Klose and trialled in 1912 between Winterthur and Romanshorn. Its compressed-air transmission proved impractical but opened the way to diesel traction.
The first operational diesel-electric locomotive was probably that of the Soviet engineer Yuri Lomonosov (1924) or the American diesel-electrics of 1924-1925; the 1912 Sulzer is the first diesel trialled but not a practical design.
What it led to
- diesel-electric locomotives, which dominated traction from the 1930s
- the end of the steam locomotive over most of the world by about 1960