Austrian North Western Railway and South-North German Connecting Railway XVII

Around the turn of the century, the Austrian North-Western Railway (ÖNWB) and the South-North German Connection Railway (SNDVB) needed a locomotive to haul express freight trains at 60 km/h (37 mph). Additionally, it had the task to operate passenger trains on hilly lines when necessary. For easier operation on inclines they had two steam domes which were interconnected.

The first batch of eight two-cylinder compound locomotives built in 1901 in Floridsdorf was called XVIIb, while the four simples built in 1902 for comparison were called XVIIa. Since the compound variant was better, eight more were built in 1904. In 1906, three simple XVIIc prototypes followed, which were built by the StEG factory: No. 286 with a saturated boiler and Nos. 287 and 288 with a Clench-Gölsdorf steam drier. In contrast to the unsatisfactory steam drier, the simple XVIIc No. 285 built in the same year in Floridsdorf got a Schmidt superheater, a lower boiler pressure and cylinders of a greater diameter.

The XVIIc was selected for further series production and 22 more were built in 1908 and 1909, bringing the total number of all XVII variants to 46. After nationalization in 1909, the variants a, b and d became kkStB class 360 and the XVIIc became class 460. After World War I, one came to the FS and got the number 606.001. The BBÖ retained the class numbers from the kkStB and some locomotives of the class 360 were retired in the following years.

In 1938, the Reichsbahn designated the remaining variants as classes 54², 54³ and 54⁴. After the war, two former XVIIb had become class 136 of the Yugoslavian JDŽ. The ÖBB designated the former variants a, b and d as classes 254 and 354 and retired them between 1951 and 1958. All 23 of the variant d came to the ÖBB as class 454 and were retired between 1949 and 1961.