Ge 4/4 # 81 or "BB 81" of the Blonay-Chamby Railroad Museum, in front of the shed at Vevey. The locomotive was built as Ge 6/6 # 81 for the Bernina Railway in 1916 by SLM and BBC and was then the most powerful one meter gauge locomotive of Europe. It had two powered three axles bogies with rod drives. After some problems, in 1929 the drive was rebuilt, the middle axles of the bogies were removed, the 4 electromotors with 960 HP in total now driving two 2-axles-bogies via a jackshaft. Between the two bogies, there is a subframe on small wheels carrying the electro-magnetic rail brakes (red). In 1943, the Bernina Railway was taken over by the Rhaetian Railway (RhB). The locomotive was renumbered in 1961 to # 181 of the Rhaetian Railway, was decommissioned in 1965 and came to the Blonay-Chamby Railroad Museum in 1970, operational for a few years only. Since 2008 there were works for the rebuilding of this impressive vehicle and it is now operational again since a few days. The locomotive came to Vevey this day, to fetch the sister vehicles Ge 2/2 # 161 "Asnin" and Ge 4/4 # 182 "Bernina Crocodile", which arrived by road transport from Landquart, for a visit during the MEGA BERNINA festival during september 2018.
