European Railroad Discussion > Mittwoch Mitropa: A restaurant car for the Spree-Alpen Express

I never went east of the Curtain, and hence there are few Mitropa cars that I have photographed.  Here's one of them, a surprise for me on a July 1966 day in Freilassing, Germany, just across the border from Salzburg.  The restaurant car is Mitropa 055-054, formerly 1108, built in Gorlitz by WUMAG in 1936.

The remainder of the train was composed exclusively of recent-build DR Liegewagen [ couchettes ], and the destination as placarded was Tarvisio.  For years I thought it was a Tourex special of hard working East Germans -- or, more likely, faithful Party members -- being rewarded with a summer vacation, although the destination in the West rather than the usual resort on the Black Sea was surprising.  Much later I found out this was a Spree-Alpen Express, a travel agency tour, like Touropa or Hummel, but for West Berliners -- and DR furnished the rolling stock;  I don't know who provided the onboard staff.

Best regards, SZ

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Thanks for posting your interesting photo and commentary.
ALLEN

A nice image of an interesting, attractive car, and some informative and rather surprising commentary to go with it. A fine post - thank you.

MC