Rhaetia 2-6-0 Locomotives in Switzerland

Class G 3/4 (Locobase 4802)

When the Rhaetian Schmalspurbahn was opened in 1890, the first locomotives on the line were these little Mogul tanks. They were named Rhaetia, Praettigau, Davos, Flueela, and Engadin. (Works numbers were 577-581).

(Three later Moguls -- 6-8 -- had larger water tanks and coal bunkers and were longer overall, but otherwise similar. Still later, eight very similar locomotives with somewhat larger boilers entered service; see Locobase 5132 for a description of this class.)

They met expectations as far as tonnage loadings were concerned, pulling 45 tons up a 4 1/2% grade at 18 km/h (11 mph). Although they were superseded in the hillier regions by the G4/5 Consolidations (Locobase entries 4801 & 8045), these engines served the RhB until electrification in the 1920s.

Praettigau was scrapped in 1925. According to [] (an astounding website on all Luxembourg railways, this information as of 21 May 2004), the last three of the Rhaetia class were sold to Luxembourg beginning with 3 (shipped by rail on 6 December 1917) and followed by 4 (13 July 1918) and 5 (5 August 1918).

Although renumbered 351-353 by the CFL and BR 99 271-99 273 by the Deutsche Reichsbahn when Nazi Germany overran Luxembourg in 1940, the three little Moguls (the only narrow-gaugers in Luxembourg with a leading truck) survived to serve in the Postwar era. #353 (ex #5) was withdrawn first on 26 October 1953. #351 followed on 17 July 1954, and #352 finished off the retirements on 29 November 1954.

Rhaetia remained as an exhibit and was steamed often on museum railways. But as the RhB still held title, they could recall the Rhaetia and finally did in 1988.

See [] (Einblicke in die RhB) website for more details and photographs.

Class G 3/4 (Locobase 5132)

Data from [] website (August 2002) for more details and photographs. See also "Regner RhB Dampflok (Echtdampflok) G 3/4 11 Heidi" on the Gartenbahn am Bach (Google translated as "Garden railway on the stream") website at

[], last accessed 14 November 2020.

The mogul tank arrangement of a particular size seems to have suited the Rhaetian Schmalspurbahn because this group of eight is very similar to the first batch ordered ten years earlier (Locobase 4802) . They came in three batches -- 9-10, 11-14 (1902 - works numbers 1476-1479)-- which worked the Landquart-Davos line--and 15-16 (1907). The latter two took up the traffic on the Davos-Filisur line.

The history notes that in World War I, Swiss railroads began to run short of coal. Although the RhB had a large supply of hard-coal briquettes, they had to mix in coke to ease combustion. Soon that fuel ran short and the engines were briefly converted to wood burners -- with two grates. Only in spring 1921, says the account, could the RhB switch back to coal. A year later, electrification had rendered most of the class redundant.

11, 13, and 14 went into "rangierdienst" (shunting or switching) service for several decades. 13 was scrapped in 1950, while 14 survives on the Appenzeller. In 1952, 11 appeared in the film version of Heidi and acquired the name. In 1977 the MEFEZ (The Eiger model-railway organization in Zweluetschinen) began running Heidi, but deterioration in her boiler led to a suspension in 1990.

Club1889 aimed at restoring the engine to service, having bought her from MEFEZ in 1999. Eventually Club1889 and Dampflokomotiv und Maschinenfabrik (DLM ) extensively overhauled Heidi, giving her a new welded, oil-fired boiler (950 litre/251 US gallons of low-sulfur oil) with superheater as well as new pistons and piston rods and a Lempor blastpipe. Her rollout came on 11 July 2014.

Total cost of the restoration: 11,600 hours with material costs of Fr. 1,298,000, work 812,000 Fr for a combined Fr. 2,110,000