Lokomotywa AGH Ty2-559, Kraków

The huge engine beside AGH’s Faculty of Metals Engineering and Industrial Computer Science is Ty2-559, a preserved freight steam locomotive displayed as a technical monument. Informally called Żyleta, it is twenty-three metres long and weighs one hundred and fifteen tonnes. Built in Elbląg in nineteen forty-three, it entered the Polish State Railways fleet in nineteen forty-five and worked through a succession of depots, ending up at Chojnice in nineteen sixty-six.

When its service ended in the late nineteen seventies, the locomotive was left to deteriorate on a siding at Chojnice. Kraków students prevented its destruction. At the opening of the two thousand seven–eight academic year, AGH student Łukasz Wzorek proposed bringing a Ty2 locomotive to the university; after negotiations, PKP Cargo gave the project this engine, its tender and a nineteen-fifties wagon, and waived the transport charge.

It reached Kraków Płaszów after a two-day journey on the thirtieth of March two thousand eight, underwent restoration near Pyskowice, and arrived here in May two thousand nine. Its handover to the academic community, on the thirtieth of May, coincided with AGH’s ninetieth anniversary.