With an urgent need to replace its fleet of 21 inherited class 80 steam locos, and without a proven home-grown diesel design, 1962 saw the East German Deutsche Reichsbahn procure a fleet of 20 type “V75” diesel-electric locos from the Czechoslovakian manufacturer CKD (Ceskomoravska Kolben Danèk). These were identical to the type T435.0 “Hektor” design which had been successfully supplied by CKD to the Czechoslovakian state railway, ČSD.
These 750hp, six-cylinder Bo-Bos operated primarily in the Leipzig and Halle area, almost exclusively on local freight work. Under the renumbering scheme of 1970, V75 001 to V75 020 became 107 001 to 107 020.
The 107s were largely ousted by class 106 in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and the majority were then scrapped. However, two – 107 004 and 107 018 – passed into industrial use at the Karsdorf cement works, giving them a stay of execution that took them through German reunification, and they then passed to the KEG (Karsdorfer Eisenbahngesellschaft) in 1991, who used them on works trains on the main line.
107 004 was cut up in 2011, but 107 018 now belongs to Railsystems RP GmbH and spends most of its time on engineers trains across Germany.
The above is a link to a video uploaded to YouTube by the user LudmillaPOWER featuring scenes of a railtour hauled by 107 018 in 2015.
Forthcoming Workings
107 018 usually works a railtour every year on August Bank Holiday weekend. 2018 is no different; it is advertised to haul a charter from Schwarzenberg to Chodová Planá in the Czech Republic on Saturday 25th August 2018 paired with Czech cousin 720 145.
European Traction 