NORSE POWER – REPLICA OF DENMARK’S FIRST LOCOMOTIVE STEAMS
A full‑size working replica of Denmark’s first locomotive has entered service, having taken almost 15 years to build with the help of British experts.
Officially launched at the Danish Railway Museum on September 15, Odin is a replica of one of five 2‑2‑2s built in 1846 by Sharp Brothers & Co. of Manchester (later part of Sharp Stewart) for the Zealand Railway, the first line in Denmark.
On the opening day of the Copenhagen‑Roskilde section, June 26 1847, Odin became the first engine to run in the country, when it was sent ahead of the inaugural train conveying King Christian VIII to ensure that the line was clear.
The original locomotive was withdrawn in 1862 and its frames and wheels used to build another locomotive – also named Odin – which was scrapped in 1876.
The museum’s only sources of information for the replica were general arrangement drawings from 1920, based on one obtained in 1908 from North British (of which Sharp Stewart was a constituent); a 1:10 scale model built from these diagrams in the 1920s; and a drawing of the proposed tender design dating from April 1845, when the engines were originally ordered.
The museum thus enlisted the assistance of early locomotive experts Dr Michael Bailey MBE and Dr John Glithero, who had carried out an archaeological survey of the original Rocket in 1999 and were involved in the production of the replica 2‑2‑0 Planet for Manchester Museum of Science & Industry (more recently, Dr Bailey also discovered that Killingworth 0‑4‑0 ‘Billy’ was the world’s third‑oldest surviving locomotive – SR482/484).
Commissioned in 2001, their report – drawing on evidence from contemporary Sharp Brothers locomotives – was published in 2004 and construction of the replica began the following year.
Dr Bailey and Dr Glithero were present for Odin’s launch day, which included the opening of a new exhibition about the locomotive and Denmark’s early railway history.