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Private company

Orenstein & Koppel

Logo: Unknown author Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons3

German engineering company

Orenstein & Koppel (O&K) was a major German engineering company specialising in railway vehicles, escalators, and heavy equipment. It was founded on April 1, 1876, in Berlin by Benno Orenstein and Arthur Koppel. Originally a general engineering company, O&K soon started to specialise in the manufacture of railway vehicles.2 It ceased to exist in 1999.1 Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0

Last updated Oct 21, 2026.

Overview

1876Founded1
  • Industryindustrial manufacturing, machinery industry and plant construction, vehicle construction1
  • HeadquartersBerlin1
  • Websitewww.oundka.com/de
  • Legal formjoint-stock company1

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Orenstein & Koppel (O&K) was a major German engineering company specialising in railway vehicles, escalators, and heavy equipment. It was founded on April 1, 1876, in Berlin by Benno Orenstein and Arthur Koppel.2

Corporate structure

Orenstein & Koppel sits at the top of its group. 5 entities, 2 countries on record. Switch between the flow chart and the network, and select any entity to see its details.

Built from subsidiaries, stakes and holdings from Wikidata (CC0); major holders from Schedules 13D and 13G. Each entity in the chart links to its source.

The story

The Orenstein & Koppel Company was a mechanical-engineering firm that first entered the railway-construction field, building locomotives and other railroad cars.

First founded in 1892 in Schlachtensee, in the Zehlendorf district of Berlin, and known as the Märkische Lokomotivfabrik, the O&K factories expanded to supply the Imperial German Army under Kaiser Wilhelm II with field-service locomotives, or Feldbahn. O&K supplied all manner of railway equipment to the Army. Because of strained capacity at the Schlachtensee shops, work transferred in 1899 to a site in Nowawes, later Babelsberg, near Potsdam. Around 1908, O&K acquired the firm of Gerlach and König in Nordhausen, building petrol and diesel locomotives there under the trade mark "Montania".

From Wikipedia’s article on Orenstein & Koppel, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4

Products and brands

  • rail transport

Listed on Wikidata.1

Subsidiaries and ownership

Subsidiaries

From Wikidata.1

Timeline

  1. 1999Dissolved Dissolved1
  2. 1876Founded Founded1

Sources

The numbers on this page point here. Each one links to the record it came from.

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