page_title: Weitzer railmotor
section_title: Technology
hierarchical_section_title: Weitzer railmotor / Technology
caption_attribution_description: English: Weitzer ACSEV hybrid railmotor in 1903. I could operate from battery, petrol engine, and from overhead wires
context_page_description: The railmotors of J. Weitzer Engine- & Waggon-Building & Iron Casting Joint-stock Company were Europe's first self-propelled railcars with internal combustion engine built in considerable numbers. The principle of their petrol–electric transmission and the four-cylinder petrol engines came from De Dion-Bouton in France. The electric engines were produced Siemens-Schuckert in Germany.
  The first cars were constructed in 1903, the series since 1906. Reports of their use can be added to a total of 65 sold railmotors and 40 trailers.
  Most of these railmotors were built for 1,435 mm standard gauge, 11 for metre gauge and 11 for 760 mm Bosnian gauge. The last ones ran on petrol-electric traction till 1960.
context_section_description: Weitzer Rt. in 1903 transferred the electric transmission to a larger scale, and ordered four-cylinder petrol engines of 50 and of 70 horsepower from De Dion-Bouton. Such a motor was placed in the engine compartment of each railcar, behind the driver's place. By a common axle, it empowered an electric generator. The electricity fed the driving motors of 30 hp each, which were placed underfloor, one at each of the two axles of the car. All of the electric equipment was produced by Siemens-Schuckert.
  A battery of electrochemical accumulators (which would have supplied enough energy to move the car) was not installed. But the electric voltage had a level that permitted to feed the propelling motors from a catenary. One of the railways using the cars later took that chance.
  Differing from the original plan, all photos of those railmotors in service show some installations above the roofs; on the Hungarian cars there were radiators, on the Romanian cars long exhaust tubes.
  The top speed of these railmotors was about 60 to 70 km/h. All had conventional couplers on both ends, the standard gauge cars with couples of buffers, the narrow gauge cars with single buffers. Thus they could haul up to two lightweight trailers.
caption: Engine
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