Beuth (locomotive)

Beuth was a 2-2-2 steam locomotive built by Borsig in Berlin in 1843, the 24th locomotive from the works and the first steam locomotive developed independently in Germany. Borsig's earlier engines had followed American models. In a race it beat a Stephenson-built engine by about ten minutes and became the prototype of fast German locomotive design for roughly the next ten years. It was named after Christian Peter Wilhelm Beuth, head of the Prussian trade academy, who had prophesied to August Borsig that nothing would ever come of his venture. The design had bar frames, cylinders mounted outside and larger than those of the earlier Adler, which avoided a crank axle that was hard to make, and a long boiler with a tall vertical steam dome that became typical of early Borsig engines. It was shown at the Berlin Trade Exhibition in 1844 and then worked for the Berlin-Anhalt Railway. A total of 71 examples were built in a kind of series and used across northern Germany, and a further development, Borussia, followed from 1844. The original locomotive was scrapped, and a replica built in 1912 is on display in the German Museum of Technology in Berlin.