HG 4/4 Nr. 704

The locomotive HG 4/4 No. 704 in pictures

The steam locomotives of the type HG 4/4 were procured in nine copies from 1923 by the French colonial administration for use on the rack railway from Song Pha to Đà Lạt in French Indochina (today Vietnam). The rack-and-pinion locomotives, built by the Swiss Locomotive and Machine Factory Winterthur (SLM), were immediately shipped to France and on to Asia, where they remained until the line was abandoned in the 1970s due to the war. Two machines that were returned to Switzerland in 1990 are preserved at the Furka-Bergstrecke steam railway (DFB), one of which (Nr. 704) has already been refurbished.