Britain 92220 Evening Star, built in 1960, is the last steam locomotive built by
British Railways, and was earmarked for preservation from the start of its career. It was also the last steam locomotive for main line service built in the United Kingdom for over four decades, until the completion of the new-build
Tornado in 2008. 0-4-0ST shunting coal wagons at
Agecroft Power Station,
Pendlebury in 1976 Trials of diesel locomotives and
railcars began in Britain in the 1930s but made only limited progress. One problem was that British diesel locomotives were often seriously under-powered compared with the steam locomotives against which they were competing. Moreover, labour and coal were relatively cheap. After 1945, problems associated with post-war reconstruction and the availability of cheap domestic-produced coal kept steam in widespread use throughout the two following decades. However the ready availability of cheap oil led to new dieselisation programmes from 1955, and these began to take full effect from around 1962. By then it was apparent that steam locomotives had reached their limit in terms of power within the restrictive British loading gauge, with no scope for larger boilers or cylinders even if mechanical firing were to be employed. Towards the end of the steam era, steam motive power fell into a state of disrepair. The last steam locomotive built for mainline British Railways was
92220 Evening Star, which was completed in March 1960. The last steam-hauled service trains on the British Railways network ran on 11 August 1968, but the use of steam locomotives in British
industry continued into the 1980s. In June 1975, there were still 41 locations where steam was in regular use, and many more where engines were maintained in reserve in case of diesel failures. Gradually, the decline of the ironstone quarries, steel, coal mining and shipbuilding industries – and the plentiful supply of redundant British Rail diesel shunters as replacements – led to the end of steam power for commercial uses. Also in the Isle of Man Steam traction continues on the Government owned Isle of Man Railway to the present day.
Germany After the Second World War, Germany was divided into the Federal Republic of Germany, with the Deutsche Bundesbahn (founded in 1949) as the new state-owned railway, and the German Democratic Republic (GDR), where railway service continued under the old pre-war name Deutsche Reichsbahn. For a short period after the war, both the
Bundesbahn (DB) and
Reichsbahn (DR) still placed orders for new steam locomotives. They needed to renew the rolling stock, mostly with steam locomotives designed for accelerated passenger trains. Many of the existing predecessors of those types of steam locomotives in Germany had been lost in the battles or simply reached the end of their lifetime, such as the famous
Prussian P 8. There was no need for new freight train engines, however, because thousands of the Classes
50 and
52 had been built during the Second World War. heritage railway in Germany. Because the concept of the so-called "
Einheitslokomotiven", the standard locomotives built in the 1920s and 1930s, and still in wide use, was already outdated in the pre-war era, a whole new design for the new steam locomotives was developed by DB and DR, called "Neubaudampflokomotiven" (new-build steam locomotives). The steam locomotives made by the DB in West Germany, under the guidance of Friedrich Witte, represented the latest evolution in steam locomotive construction including fully welded frames, high-performance boilers and roller bearings on all moving parts. Although these new DB classes (
10,
23,
65,
66 and
82) were said to be among the finest and best-performing German steam locomotives ever built, none of them exceeded 25 years in service. The last one, 23 105 (still preserved), went into service in 1959. The Democratic Republic in East Germany began a similar procurement plan, including engines for a narrow gauge. The DR-Neubaudampflokomotiven were the classes
23.10,
25.10,
50.40,
65.10,
83.10,
99.23-24 and
99.77-79. The purchase of new-build steam locomotives by the DR ended in 1960 with 50 4088, the last standard-gauge steam locomotive built in Germany. No locomotive of the classes 25.10 and 83.10 was in service for more than 17 years. The last engines of the classes 23.10, 65.10 and 50.40 were retired in the late 1970s, with some units older than 25 years. Some of the narrow-gauge locomotives are still in service for tourism purposes. Later, during the early 1960s, the DR developed a way to
reconstruct older locomotives to conform with contemporary requirements. The high-speed locomotive
18 201 and the class
01.5 are examples of designs from that programme. Around 1960, the Bundesbahn in West Germany began to phase out all steam-hauled trains over a period of ten years, but still had about 5,000 of them in running condition. Even though DB were very assertive in continuing the electrification on the main lines – in 1963 they reached of electrified routes – and dieselisation with new developed stock, they had not completely removed steam locomotives within the ten-year goal. In 1972, the Hamburg and Frankfurt departments of the DB rail networks became the first to no longer operate steam locomotives in their areas. The remaining steam locomotives began to gather in rail yards in Rheine, Tübingen, Hof, Saarbrücken, Gelsenkirchen-Bismarck and others, which soon became popular with rail enthusiasts. In 1975, DB's last steam express train made its final run on the Emsland-Line from Rheine to Norddeich in the upper north of Germany. Two years later, on 26 October 1977, the heavy freight engine
44 903 (computer-based new number 043 903–4) made her final run at the same railway yard. After this date, no regular steam service took place on the network of the DB until their privatisation in 1994. railway steam locomotive in southern
Bavaria In the GDR, the Reichsbahn continued steam operation until 1988 on standard gauge tracks for economic and political reasons, despite strong efforts to phase out steam being made since the 1970s. The last locomotives in service where of the classes 50.35 and
52.80, which hauled goods trains on rural main and branch lines. Unlike the DB, there was never a large concentration of steam locomotives in just a few yards in the East, because throughout the DR network the infrastructure for steam locomotives remained intact until the end of the GDR in 1990. This was also the reason that there was never a strict "final cut" at steam operations, with the DR continuing to use steam locomotives from time to time until they merged with the DB in 1994. On their narrow-gauge lines, however, steam locomotives continued to be used on a daily year-round basis, mainly for tourist reasons. The largest of these is the
Harzer Schmalspurbahn (
Harz Narrow Gauge Railways) network in the Harz Mountains, but the lines in Saxony and on the coast of the Baltic Sea are also notable. Even though all former DR narrow-gauge railways have undergone privatisation, steam operations are still commonplace there. The German express locomotive, number 18 201 of the Deutsche Reichsbahn in East Germany, appeared in 1960–61 at Meiningen Steam Locomotive Works as a conversion of the Henschel-Wegmann train locomotive 61 002, the tender from 44 468 and parts of H 45 024 and Class 41. It is the fastest operational steam locomotive in the world.
Russia In the USSR, although the first mainline diesel-electric locomotive was built in USSR in 1924, the last steam locomotive (
model П36, serial number 251) was built in 1956; it is now in the Museum of Railway Machinery at the former
Warsaw Rail Terminal, Saint Petersburg. In the European part of the USSR, almost all steam locomotives were replaced by diesel and electric locomotives in the 1960s; in Siberia and Central Asia, state records verify that L-class s and LV-class s were not retired until 1985. Until 1994, Russia had at least 1,000 steam locomotives
stored in operable condition in case of "national emergencies".
Other countries In Finland, the first diesels were introduced in the mid-1950s, superseding steam locomotives by the early 1960s. State railways (
VR) operated steam locomotives until 1975. In the Netherlands, the first electric trains appeared in 1908, making the trip from Rotterdam to The Hague. The first diesels were introduced in 1934. As electric and diesel trains performed so well, the decline of steam started just after World War II, with steam traction for the Dutch railways ending on 7 January 1958. Steam locomotives continued however to be used for industrial purposes. The last steam locomotive was used at the Julia coal mine in 1975. In Poland, on non-electrified tracks, steam locomotives were superseded almost entirely by diesels by the 1990s. A few steam locomotives, however, operate in the regularly scheduled service from
Wolsztyn. After ceasing on 31 March 2014, regular service resumed out of Wolsztyn on 15 May 2017 with weekday runs to Leszno. This operation is maintained as a means of preserving railway heritage and as a tourist attraction. Apart from that, numerous railway museums and heritage railways (mostly
narrow gauge) own steam locomotives in working condition. In France, steam locomotives have not been used for commercial services since 24 September 1975. In Spain, the first electric trains were introduced in 1911, and the first diesels in 1935, just one year before the
Spanish Civil War. National railway company (
Renfe) operated steam locomotives until 9 June 1975. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, some steam locomotives are still used for industrial purposes, for example at the coal mine in
Banovići and
ArcelorMittal factory in
Zenica. In Portugal, operations in CP with steam locos was ended over its broad gauge net 25 March 1977 and over its narrow gauge in 1986. In Hungary, passenger steam operations ended in 1984. At that time,
MÁV Class 424 was the only steam engine used for passenger trains. == Asia ==