Freibahn

The company was founded by Arthur Koppel, who had previously co-founded the company Orenstein & Koppel (O&K for short) together with Benno Orenstein. It was originally a purely trading company for narrow-gauge railways, selling railway tracks and tipper wagons. In 1876, Benno Orenstein contributed 3,000 marks as a loan from an uncle. Arthur Koppel, a former authorized officer of the G. E. Dellschau iron trading company, contributed 15,000 marks. The company initially developed relatively slowly, and in 1885 the two partners amicably parted ways. They divided their market into foreign and domestic regions for five years, and Koppel founded the company Arthur Koppel GmbH, which remained more successful abroad. At the end of 1905, the separately run sales operations were merged again.

The Imperial German Army had decided very late to motorize the troops. For a long time, they relied on horses. The decisive breakthrough came from the observations of the French, who in the autumn of 1903 tested a road truck from the company Société Française des Trains Renard. This truck was capable of moving heavy artillery and equipment on roads as well as off-road. German generals promoted the rapid construction of a comparable motorized train. Corresponding tenders were sent to the industry. Arthur Koppel was very interested in such a military contract and hoped to convince the Prussian Artillery Testing Commission with his design. ^[2] The mechanical engineer Erich Wendeler, who later worked for Hanomag, designed the huge street steam locomotive for Arthur Koppel, which was developed at Freibahn GmbH in Spandau-Seegefeld near Berlin. ^[3] Until the completion of the new open-track factory in Seegefeld near Spandau, the machine factory "Cyclop" Mehlis and Behrens, Berlin, Pankstraße 15, built the locomotives, which rolled under their own steam to Seegefeld for completion. The trailers were supplied by Arthur Koppel AG until the end of production.^[4] The production of the steam vehicles took place at the Berlin Locomotive and Machine Factory, formerly L. Schwarzkopf. At the international fair in Milan in 1906, a grand prize in the category of road transport was awarded to the Freibahn company. In 1908, the steam engine was replaced by a gasoline engine. Attempts to use the vehicles in agriculture were unsuccessful. Ultimately, the tests and sales were unsatisfactory, which led to the company's dissolution in 1910.