At 185 years old and therefore the oldest surviving steam train on the European continent, nowadays the Ajax can be admired at the Technical Museum in Vienna.
The Ajax, along with the Minotaurus was purchased from the English steam train manufacturers Jones, Turner & Evans in 1841 for use in goods and passenger transport. The two steam locomotives with separate tenders with internal steam cylinders and Stephenson valve gear were used on the line between Floridsdorf and Stockerau, a branch line of the Emperor Ferdinand Northern Railway. While the Minotaurus was taken out of service in 1867 and scrapped in 1871, the Ajax continued to run for much longer. Its tank was replaced in the 1850s and 1860s, and it was also given a new tender, manufactured by the Vienna-Gloggnitz Railway’s engine works. After being taken out of service in 1874, the Ajax was not scrapped but simply stored in an engine shed, where it was rediscovered many years later. In 1911 it made its way to the Austrian Railway Museum, whose holdings were subsequently transferred to the Technical Museum in Vienna. Following an expert restoration in 2006, the historic Ajax steam train together with its no. 37 tender nowadays has a fixed place in the Technical Museum and is now being featured as the first design of the new-look “Railways” series.
The Ajax has a 0-4-2 configuration and a gauge of 1,435 millimetres. It is 12.2 metres long, 2.3 metres wide and 4.85 metres tall, weighing 19.2 tonnes. Its tender, with an unloaded weight of 9.5 tonnes, can hold around 4.7 cubic metres of water and 2.5 cubic metres of coal.
