European Railroad Discussion > DB - passenger - 1972

With this final installment I offer an assortment of passenger equipment. I was a poor student in 1972 and could not afford to ride the fine "Inter City" trains, so my travels were retricted to locals and slower operations. But in many ways that was good, because I saw real operations of every day trains on the DB.

1: These RDC diesel trains operated north to Sylt & Kiel. I believe they were four cars total. Picture is at Hamburg-Altona. Was there only one power car, or one at each end? This pic has two sets MUed.

2: Hamburg-Altona

3: A more modern RDC set at Trier



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/30/14 06:53 by MEKoch.

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4 & 5: Sorry for the poor quality of the photos. The RDC cars were so much fun to ride. It was truly a bus on rails. Two wheel trucks. You entered at the front. The operator took your fare. Then off you would go on rural branch lines at 30-40 miles per hour. Stations were only paved roads quite often. They would stop and let people off and on. People had gone shopping and running their errands. The driver had a regular transmission to shift gears as the car accelerated.

Do these operations still exist in rural Germany?

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6: This 2nd class coach is 37-203 used in local passenger service. I notice its truck design. Three single axles? Can someone describe how this worked?

7: Here is a typical mixed class coach

8: DB offered small auto train services. From Hamburg-Altona to Sylt. They simply added auto carriers on to the rear of a passenger train. There were other destinations as well. Do they still do this?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/30/14 07:06 by MEKoch.

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9: Buffetraum. Perhaps this buffet style allowed them to save money on the operation, while attracting more passengers to the car.

10: Schlafwagon - sleeping over night on trains was very common

11: Voiture Lits - I think this is a French sleeping car?

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This last pic is the typical signs on intercity passenger trains which told the occupant where this car was headed, as well as major intermediate stations. The signs were important when a train may have cars for several destinations, which are switched out enroute.

This particular car is headed from Hamburg south through central Germany (Hannover - Frankfurt - Mannheim) to Freiburg, near Switzerland.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/30/14 07:18 by MEKoch.

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MEKoch Wrote:
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#5 is an electric with accus, it needed loading stations. Very cheap to operate but limited distances.

Erwin from Austria

> 4 & 5: Sorry for the poor quality of the photos.
> The RDC cars were so much fun to ride. It was
> truly a bus on rails. Two wheel trucks. You
> entered at the front. The operator took your
> fare. Then off you would go on rural branch lines
> at 30-40 miles per hour. Stations were only paved
> roads quite often. They would stop and let people
> off and on. People had gone shopping and running
> their errands. The driver had a regular
> transmission to shift gears as the car
> accelerated.
>
> Do these operations still exist in rural Germany?

MEKoch Wrote:
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> 11: Voiture Lits - I think this is a French
> sleeping car?

Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits, founded as a Belgian company, more in wikipedia.
Erwin from Austria

MEKoch Wrote:
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> 4 & 5: Sorry for the poor quality of the photos.
> The RDC cars were so much fun to ride. It was
> truly a bus on rails. Two wheel trucks. You
> entered at the front. The operator took your
> fare. Then off you would go on rural branch lines
> at 30-40 miles per hour. Stations were only paved
> roads quite often. They would stop and let people
> off and on. People had gone shopping and running
> their errands. The driver had a regular
> transmission to shift gears as the car
> accelerated.


My first trip to Germany was in 1971 with my mother. I was 14 at the time. She wanted to show me the town she grew up in, Bad Kissingen, which is located in northern Bavaria. After landing at Frankfurt, we took an intercity train to Gemunden am Main. At Gemunden we transfer-ed to one of those four wheel rail buses for the last leg to Bad Kissingen. Thirty six years later in May of 2007 I took my wife to Bad Kissingen to show her the town. The rail cars used on the Gemunden am Main - Bad Kissingen - Schwienfurt shuttle are of course much more modern than the old rail buses we both remember.


> Do these operations still exist in rural Germany?

Yes. Local services are still offered on many branch lines -

http://kursbuch.bahn.de/hafas/kbview.exe/dn/KB803_H_Taeglich_G26112013.pdf?filename=KB803_H_Taeglich_G26112013.pdf&orig=k

The huge Deutschen Bahn Kursbuch timetable in now on line -

http://kursbuch.bahn.de/hafas/kbview.exe/dn?rt=1&mainframe=IK_strecken

Click on the map and use the arrows on the side to scroll around to find the city or line you're interested in.


As for the four wheel rail buses, I believe some of them were sold to other countries. I want to say Cuba, but I might be wrong ....

Regarding #11:
- It appears to me that the car number on the end [ officially "crossed out" of course, replaced by the computer-era number mid car ] is 3777. If so, this was built in 1931 in Italy as a Z class sleeper with 12 second class [ as it was then ] two berth compartments. The window arrangement is consistent with the 1970's appearance of these cars, most or all of which had had one compartment -- the one with the frosted window -- converted to an office/pantry, as well as other internal modifications.

- While still appearing to be a Wagons-Lits car, I believe -- further clarification desired -- this car along with 283 other CIWL sleepers was conveyed to SNCF on July 1, 1971. The full computer number would have been one way to tell.

Best regards, SZ

Regarding #9:
Since this vehicle is in what was termed "Pop Livery", which was applied to very few cars of all types, it should be one of the five buffet cars rebuilt to class BRbumz 285 in 1971. These cars retained four second class compartments at the far end. But I thought all of these were labeled externally as "Snack Bar".....

Best, SZ

Until very recently it was usual for sleeping cars on the continent to be labelled as such in four languages - eg "Schlafwagen", Voiture Lits", Sleeping Car" and "Carroza Letti", with variations for cars of Central and Eastern European origin.I don't know what the practice was in Scandinavia or the Iberian pensinsular. Sadly they are now all disappearing.

MEKoch Wrote:
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> 6: This 2nd class coach is 37-203 used in local
> passenger service. I notice its truck design.
> Three single axles? Can someone describe how this
> worked?
>

Your picture #6 shows a so called "Umbauwagen" (rebuilt car). Starting 1953/54, DB used undercarriages (frames) from old Prussian and Bavarian coaches to build up new passenger cars. They came in two main flavors: 3-axle and 4-axle. The 3-axles, as in your pictures had a standardized length of 13300 mm with an outer axle spacing of 7500 mm. The middle axle was able to move sideward to ensure smooth running. In praxis, two cars have been coupled together permanently with an initial tension of 3 tons to make riding even smoother. Three different kinds of the 3-axle coaches have been built: 2nd class (type B3yg), combined 1st and 2nd class (type AB3yg) and 2nd class with a luggage compartment (type BPw3yg). 6500 of these cars have been built in total and some are still in use either at museum railways or as MOW cars.

BTW, the attached picture shows the 4-axle version of the "Umbauwagen".

Hope this helps! E111

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MEKoch Wrote:
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> 1: These RDC diesel trains operated north to Sylt
> & Kiel. I believe they were four cars total.
> Picture is at Hamburg-Altona. Was there only one
> power car, or one at each end? This pic has two
> sets MUed.

The classes VT08 and VT12 (later classes 612 and 613) built between 1952 and 1954, came in different versions with 3, 4 or 5 cars. Only one of the end cars had its front truck powered (axle arrangement B´2´).

[EDIT]: I forgot to mention in my earlier post that the US Army in Germany received similar DMUs for their internal use

> 3: A more modern RDC set at Trier
This is a class 634 DMU, which is a rebuild from the class 624 originally built between 1964 and 1966 for the regional traffic. Some of the class 624 DMU sets got new trucks starting 1972 with air suspension and have been renumbered to class 634. Both classes had two powered cars (axle arrangement of the complete DMU was B´2´ + 2´2´ + 2´B´.

Hope this helps! E111



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/31/14 08:04 by E111.

I think the "Bummelzuege" went to Argentina.

Rode them quite a bit on Rheinland-Pfalz branch lines.

Jim Maurer