When the Pilatus railway was opened in 1887, it was the steepest rack railway in the world with 48 percent and it still holds this title today. For this the SLM had built nine steam rack railcars with inclined cab and passenger compartments to match the grade of the track. The boiler was mounted laterally on the valley side.

In 1900 and 1909, numbers 10 and 11 were built. 11 had a top speed of 4.4 instead of 3.6 km/h. Later all were superheated and got a revised suspension. Their service ended in 1937 when the Pilatus railway was electrified. No. 9 was used as a catenary-independent service vehicle until 1982. Today it is on display in Lucerne, while 10 can be found in Munich.

The many branch lines with few gradients and low passenger numbers in the MÁV network offered themselves early on for the use of railcars. Ganz of Budapest secured the license for the De Dion-Bouton steam railcars and produced 30 or 89 examples for the MÁV, depending on the source. Ten railcars of the types with 35 and 50 hp were found under the generic designations BCMot VIIa to VIId, others were built with 80 hp. 

What was special about the De Dion-Bouton design was the steam engine, which was attached to the axle like a nose-suspended motor and was also sprung. The four cylinders with compound action were arranged horizontally and could run at a high speed of 600 to 800 revolutions per minute thanks to a gearbox. The steam came from a small, vertically arranged water-tube boiler, which operated at a relatively high pressure of 18 bars.

De Dion-Bouton type steam engine

collection György Villányi

In addition to the different power output, the individual variants of type VII were characterized above all by a different layout of the interior. The greatest advantage of the special boilers was that they could be warmed up in an hour and could therefore simply be switched off overnight. It turned out, however, that the railcars had a high consumption and maintenance was relatively expensive. They were all phased out by the start of the First World War and replaced by railcars with combustion engines after the end of the war.

The DW type steam railcars were developed for the Royal Württemberg State Railways from 1893, but a few examples were also built for the Baden State Railways. They were also known under the name “Kittel steam railcar”, which can be traced back to the Württemberg chief engineer Eugen Kittel.

A sample and six production vehicles were equipped with a boiler according to Henri Serpollet's patent. Unlike other boilers, this one did not have a water supply, but only the amount of steam that was currently required was generated directly by evaporation on the hot walls. Despite its low weight, it was not convincing. For this reason, Kittel developed its own type of upright boiler, with which the existing cars were equipped. Since these proved themselves, Württemberg ordered ten more vehicles with the new boiler, and an order for eight vehicles in almost identical design also came from Baden.

The railcars were mainly used on small branch lines with low passenger numbers in the area of the two operators. When the Reichsbahn took them over, they were given the numbers 9 to 14. In the 1930s, most of the examples were either retired or sold to private railways. A vehicle arrived in France in 1945 and remained in service there until 1953.