Borsig

Borsig was the Berlin locomotive and machinery builder founded by August Borsig, whose works date the founding to 22 July 1837, the day of the first successful casting in the foundry. Its first locomotive, factory number 1 and named BORSIG, was finished in 1840 and on 21 July 1840 beat a Stephenson-built engine in a race by ten minutes, which showed that Germany no longer had to import locomotives and engineers. Orders then grew quickly: the hundredth engine was finished in 1846, about 500 had been built when August Borsig died in 1854, and by 1872 the firm was the largest locomotive producer in Europe. Production later moved to a new works at Tegel, inaugurated in 1898. The Great Depression left the company close to liquidation, and its locomotive business was saved by a merger with AEG, with later work done under the name Borsig Lokomotiv-Werke. Its best known engine is the streamlined DRG Class 05, the first steam locomotive to reach 200 km/h. The last of 16,352 locomotives was built in 1954, and the Borsig name now continues on a separate group that makes pressure vessels, heat exchangers and compressors.