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AT ÖBB 1216 Taurus

Since 1999 Siemens has been building TAURUS locomotives for the Austrian Federal Railways, OBB. Originally 400 machines of the 1016/1116 series were planned, but the market for especially freight operation changed drastically during the first years of the new millennium. The 1016/1116 proved pretty soon that it had not the potential to become a product that could help the OBB to expand its working domain outside its own national borders. In the mean time, the industry had been able to implement several innovations into products for other operators, that with their new vehicles would become very serious opponents for the OBB on especially the north-south corridor from Germany to Italy and towards Eastern Europe.

The OBB therefore started a dialog with manufacturer Siemens so see if the order for 400 machines could be changed in favour of a new ‘all-European’ locomotive. These negotiations resulted finally resulted in the development of the ultimate EuroSprinter; the Siemens the ES64U4 platform, a.k.a. the OBB 1216 series or ‘Taurus 3’. 50 of such multi purpose, multi system electrics have been built (in stead of the final 68 1116 locomotives) which can be used for services to Germany, Italy, Slovenia and the Czech Republic. Four machines were preliminarily built for trials, homologation and … setting the world high speed record for electric locomotives on a dazzling 357 kph!

Liveries: ÖBB Red, ÖBB Railjet, ÖBB Nightjet, ÖBB Rail Cargo Carrier, ÖBB Italy flag Taurus, World Record

category=Austrian locomotives

Stats:
Speed: 230 km/h
Power: 6,400 KW