RESICZA - the locomotive that documents present as the first one to have been manufactured in South-Eastern Europe, in 1872, is one and the same with the machine occupying the main position in our museum.

It is what we might certainly and gladly assert! Because the „little machine“ was carrying a plate with the inscription 1., in 1972, a theory of conspiration has come into being in 2012 – and still partly lasts –, when the real number, 2., was written on. The truth is that the original plates were dismantled and lost after 1948.

The old images above show properly the real chronology of the beginning of steam locomotive manufacturing in Resita.

We might specify that initially the horse tracking was experienced in Resita in 1865 on an industrial railway, and in 1868-1871, between Resita and the mines of Secul.

The steam machines circulation was inaugurated there only in 1871, November 26, after setting the new tracks.

So, SZEKUL, the Viennese machine, was the first steam locomotive (number plate - 1.) to circulate between Resita and Secul.

It was a Bt-n2 (StEG 52) type, manufactured by St.E.G. Wien after John Hasswell`s project.

There were three stages in bringing it to Resita: by ship, from Vienna to Bazias, on the railroad (set in 1854) from Bazias to Oravita, and by a platform driven by 36 yokes of oxen, from Oravita to Resita.

RESICZA (number plate – 2.) was the first steam engine manufactured in Resita, following the project and model of the engine called SZEKUL; two other similar engines were manufactured after, called as follows:

- BOGSAN - number plate 3. and
- HUNGARIA - number plate 4..

All those four machines worked industrial transportation on the railways Resita - Secul and Resita - Bocsa - Ocna de Fier (the last one, of 31.3 km length, was set in work in 1873, September 3).

HUNGARIA was the steam locomotive presented at the Universal Exhibition of Vienna, 1873, after a way similar to that one of SZEKUL locomotive: by a platform driven by oxen, by rail and by ship.

The locomotives called SZEKUL, BOCSAN, and HUNGARIA were repealed within the inter-wars, in the 1930s.

An entirely different was the fate of RESICZA, which became the top of series in local production of steam locomotives. In 1937, it was repealed in accordance with some documents, and we have no reference for two decades. In 1957 it was discovered in Campia Turzii sitting on a shunting track, and was brought home, in Resita, in 1961 due to the approaches the direction of Iron and Steel Plants did at that time.

Initially, the engine was placed on a shunting track nearby the Locomotives Factory; in 1972 it was re-placed in Triaj area, on the same central place we can find it now. Once the plate RESICZA – 2. was set, in 2012, the „little machine“ has recovered its proper identity.

Apart from those three locomtives of Bt-n2 (StEG 52) type, St.E.G. (the Privileged Austro-Hungarian State Railway Company) produced in Resita up to 1918 other six industrial steam engines:
- 4 of the series D-n2 (StEG 54 Orient), in 1884, 1894, and 1898;
- 2 of the series Ct-n2 (StEG 123) – in 1894 and 1898.
The new Locomotive Factory of U.D.R. S.A. produced after 1925 the next series of steam locomotives.