On Tuesday, Europe's most powerful rack and pinion locomotive was christened in Oberwald, followed by a maiden voyage to Realp.
Lok 704 HG 4/4 was delivered in 1923 by the Swiss Locomotive and Machine Works Winterthur (SLM) to Indochina, today's Vietnam.
In 1990 it was one of the four locomotives that specialists from the Furka mountain line steam train brought from the central Vietnamese highlands to Switzerland as part of the "Back to Switzerland" campaign.
From 2006 to 2018, the machine was transformed into a reconditioned locomotive by specialists from the DFB steam locomotive workshop in Chur, and then in Uzwil SG taking about 52,000 hours of labour.
With the use of the new locomotive, the DFB has five operational steam locomotives available for the first time.
Next year, one of them, the HG 3/4 number 1, will no longer be in use for the time being.
It is undergoing a major revision.
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