Which European company designed the first electric locomotive and is still a word leader in electric traction?

Question

Which European company designed the first electric locomotive and is still a word leader in electric traction?

Answer 1

Siemens - are you a Siemens representative???

Answer 2

GOOGLE it...

Answer 3

Hopefully Grumpy's answer has burst your ego-bubble and sent you for the long fall off the high horse, Oxy...the first little electric was pretty useless without infrastructure regardless of who made it (who as it seems, wasn't Siemens as you were so sure)...which leads me to the first electrified main line (1907, NYNH&HRR, 4-tracks wide), first AC/DC electrics (Westinghouse, NYNH&HRR), first production rectifiers (PRR had first built in house, NYNH&HRR had first production GE EP-5), etc.....all of the USA...

Answer 4

This guy "Robert Davidson" beat Siemens by 38 years.

Siemens did not exist as the company "Siemens" at the time Werner Von Siemens designed his locomotive. I know they use 150 years as their age but that is a very big stretch given the history of the company. The name has changed hands as the company was bartered about, and product lines were bought and sold.

The first known electric locomotive was built by a Scotsman, Robert Davidson of Aberdeen in 1837 and was powered by galvanic cells. Davidson later built a larger locomotive named Galvani which was shown at the Royal Scottish Society of Arts Exhibition in 1841.  38 years before Siemens

Siemens first electric locomotive was designed by the German scientist Werner Von Siemens. It was shown at an international trade exhibition in Berlin in 1879. A special track was built for the locomotive, which hauled up to thirty visitors at a time around the exhibition. One of earliest electric railway, in England was Volk�s Electric Railway, built along the sea-front at Brighton. This railway was opened in 1883. It was a marvelous holiday attraction at that time, and is still very popular with visitors to the seaside town. The first electric trains to be used as a serious means of transport appeared on the London Underground in 1890, and the building of longer distance electric railway began after the First World War.

Yours: Grumpy

Answer 5

The first time in Europe in 1901 on the Valtellina line of the Societa Italiana delle Strade Ferrate, Meridionali Escerente la Rete Adriatica the idea of electric railway traction is realised, using the system of a Hungarian engineer: Kandó Kálmán. This line was electrified using 3000V three-phase 16 2/3 Hz system. A 900hp electric engine pulled the trains, with a maximum speed of 30km/h. The locomotive has Bo+Bo truck arrangement. After these prototype engines in 1904 the Italian rail company bought 3 modified locomotives. These locos had 1-C-1 wheel arrangement, 1200hp continuous power and 62km/h allowed speed. These locomotives had rod drive, patented by Kandó.

A few years later in 1920 the Paris-Orleans Rail Company purchased two locomotives. These locomotives equipped with two 1500V D.C. engines, 4000hp continuous power. The wheel arrangement was 2-B-B-2 with a maximum allowed speed of 130km/h. The wheel diameter was 1750mm, which was connected by a rod. This engine was not so successful, that the Italian ones, but French liked it and named it as a "Beautiful Hungarian".