The railway workshop was constructed in 1863 by the Werra-Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft across from the main station of Meiningen. It got turned into one of the main locomotive workshops by the Preußische Staatseisenbahnen in 1902. Soon after in 1908 they noticed that the space the existing building provided wasn’t enough to fulfill their needs, so the planning of a new workshop began. In the year 1910 the building which is present today was constructed with a locomotive hall, a foundry, a depot, several workshops, a school, a canteen and even a bathhouse. The buildings were finished in March 1914 and the locomotive workshop began its operation with 490 workers. The number increased rapidly to 800 workers after a month and finally 2200 in 1918. In the workshop, locomotives and passenger cars of the Preußischen Staatseisenbahnen were repaired till the Deutsche Reichsbahn took over the factory in 1920.
It got renamed in RAW Meiningen and was expanded till the year 1926 with a bigger locomotive hall, two cranes and a heating plant. From then on mostly heavy steam engines of the types 01, 02, 43 and 44 were repaired while the repair of passenger cars was transferred to the RAW Gotha. During the 2nd world war, locomotives like type 52 were repaired in the RAW Meiningen. Even the engines of Hitlers Führersonderzug were maintained in the workshop. Unlike many others, the factory was unharmed by the bombings during the end of the war and was occupied by the allies on the 6th of April 1945.
In August 1945 2638 workers were employed in the workshop again and the factory was converted into a VEB by director Oskar Lipp. In 1951 a boiler exploded, killing 10 workers and a person on the nearby street. The boiler flew 150 m into the garden of the neighbored hospital until it finally came to a stop. After the director died in a car crash, the workshop was named ‘Reichsbahnausbesserungswerk Helmut Scholz’ to honor him in 1969. In the 1960s, the RAW Meiningen also focused on building snow plows and the conversion of steam powered engines to oil powered engines. In the oil crisis of 1980 a lot of engines were converted again the other way back to being steam powered and even new steam engines were produced in 1984.
Till the year 1989 the number of workers slowly declined to 1400 and even more after the Deutsche Bahn AG took over the workshop in 1994. About this time the buildings you see in the pictures were abandoned, while the other half of the workshop under the name ‘Dampflokwerk Meiningen’ remains in operation till today. We recommend it to be explored on Sundays, since there is no activity on the property at this time. However, you can book a tour every Saturday to view the active part of the factory and get more information about its history and steam locomotives.
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