European Railroad Discussion > DB Class 245 Starts Revenue Service in Bavaria

Slowly, but it happens: The new class 245 of Deutsche Bahn starts its appearance in revenue service in Bavaria. While one pair of trains between Kempten and Munich use this class since a couple of weeks already, the service between Mühldorf and Munich is quite new and runs are mostly to train the engineers on the new locomotive.

In 2011, DB entered in a general agreement with Bombardier to order 200 units of the TRAXX P160 DE ME diesel unit, with a fixed order of 20 units. Axle arrangement of this 83 tons locomotive is Bo´Bo´, with a length of 18.900 mm. The unit uses suspended nose 3-phase motors and there are four electronic power converters driven by four (!) Caterpillar CAT C18 6-cylinder prime movers, each with 563 KW, yielding a total power of 2.252 kW. Maximum speed is 160 km/h.

In the pictures below, the first unit for the Südostbayernbahn, a subsidiary of DB responsible for the commuter traffic around Mühldorf and between Mühldorf and Munich, is used on a regular train for an engineers training. The third picture shows the train with the trailing 218 428. The new class 245 will replace the 218 long term.

E111

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Gonna miss those 218s; I used to see them all the time when I was stationed in Germany in the early 80's. Here's a small sampling:
1. DB 218 365-5 KAISERSLAUTERN 24-12-1979
2. DB 218 368-9 FRANKFURT AM 21-08-1979
3. DB 218 373-9 BAD KREUZNACH SNCF TRAIN 05-1981

Brian Ehni

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Thank you for the report and first class pictures E111! Looks like down there DB is running highly interesting mixtures of rolling stock ;)

I've been eagerly waiting for these appear in revenue service since Innotrans 2012...

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