ÖBB 4090

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ÖBB 4090
ÖBB 4090 Annaberg.jpg
Numbering: 4090.001-003
Number: 3
Manufacturer: SGP , ELIN
Year of construction (s): 1994
Axis formula : Bo'Bo '
Top speed: 70 km / h
Starting tractive effort: 35 kN
Power system : 6.5 kV / 25 Hz
Drive: Hollow shaft cardan

The series 4090 of the ÖBB is a series of three electric narrow gauge - railcars , which for the Mariazell Railway built and their due unique power system were (single-phase AC of 6.5 kV at 25 Hz) used exclusively there.

history

The 1099 series locomotives have been hauling all trains on the Mariazellerbahn for over 80 years , but in the mid-1990s it was urgently time to replace them with a new generation of vehicles. It was decided to move away from the tried and tested locomotive and wagon concept and introduce multiple units instead. A total of seven vehicles were procured, namely three railcars, three intermediate cars and a control car . With these vehicles two different sets were formed. A four-part set with two power cars at each end and two intermediate cars in the middle was planned for the entire route, while the remaining vehicles were to form a three-part set for traffic on the valley route to Laubenbachmühle. The vehicles originally had the following paintwork: NCS 2000 ("Mariazeller" white), RAL 3020 (traffic red), RAL 7022 (umbra gray), NCS 6030 Y70R ("Mariazeller" brown). The brown ribbon window was removed shortly after delivery.

Vehicle procurement controversy

The new vehicles were in the crossfire of criticism long before they were delivered. It was feared that they would even get stuck in the tunnels because of their width . The overhead line should also not be suitable, so the entire Mariazellerbahn had to be converted to use the railcars.

The railcars are wider than the old cars, namely 2.65 instead of 2.50 meters. At that time, a common international trend was followed to build vehicles wider at seat height and narrower in the roof area. In this way, a larger seat width can be achieved, or in this case four seats could be arranged side by side, whereas in a car of the usual width, with today's demands on comfort, only three seats would have to be arranged side by side. So the broadening was an economic necessity. However, they knew about the profile situation five years before delivery, because as early as 1989 a profile gauge was built with which one drove the entire route. Ever since then it was known that the wagons would fit through the tunnels without any problems, only minor cut-offs were required in the area of ​​the pantograph , and the overhead contact line had to be slightly modified. However, this has nothing to do with the width of the vehicles, but is due to their softer suspension. As a result, the vehicle wobbles more than the old 1099, which in turn required a wider contact strip.

The railcars fit through the tunnels without any problems, and getting out of a broken train was largely possible without any problems. Nevertheless, it has been ensured that the train cannot come to a standstill in the tunnel, because it has an emergency brake override , which enables the train to continue driving and leave the tunnel even when the emergency brake is on.

Theoretically, the trains could use the route, but in practice it should still take a long time before they could actually be put into operation. Today, a manufacturer has to hand over a new vehicle to the operator that is ready for operation and approved, so he himself has to ensure that a fully functional vehicle reaches the customer. In earlier years, the railway administrations had to put the vehicles into operation themselves, albeit with the support of the manufacturer. However, full suitability was not guaranteed from the start. In addition, the 4090 contains a large number of newly developed components and systems that were only installed in this form in other locomotives much later. So a lot of problems arose which could only be solved satisfactorily after some time. Already at the time of delivery it became apparent that a follow-up order was not to be expected. In such situations it has often been shown in the past that the manufacturers no longer had any particular interest in such vehicles and it was up to the operator to develop them for series production. The vehicles, for example, suffered from the fundamental lack of prototypes that they were parked for a long time and often because they had to wait for new and improved parts. A small damage, which can be repaired in a vehicle from a large series simply by exchanging the defective part, becomes a problem here because the storage of spare parts is not economically justifiable.

Approval and use

Two generations of electric traction vehicles in Mariazell

The vehicles were all registered for traffic in the course of 1995. They were originally designed for 80 km / h and accordingly test-driven at 88 km / h (top speed plus 10 percent excess) with sufficient smoothness. Nevertheless, it was only approved for 70 km / h, while in planned operation only a maximum of 60 km / h is driven. 70 km / h are reserved for the Pinzgau Railway for the time being .

After all, after many teething problems, the problems were more or less under control, and the railcars ran more or less regularly on schedule. They were well received by the public not only because of the wider and more comfortable seats, but also because of the spacious entrance. Only the windows that can only be opened a crack for safety reasons, due to the width of the vehicles, are not generally popular on this panoramic route.

However, the use of both sets did not last too long, which is why replacement sets with locomotives and wagons, and later with series 5090 diesel multiple units , had to be provided. Finally, the schedule was adapted to the actual conditions, you only drive one plantation. For a while, consideration was given to converting a railcar into a control car in order to reduce the shortage of spare parts. In this way, two three-part sets would have been obtained, but this plan was not implemented, rather all three railcars were repaired.

After a serious gearbox damage in summer 2001, the 4090.003 had to be parked after it could only be removed from the place of damage by crane and road low loader. Only after almost two years could it be put back into operation. Since it was initially replacing the control car in the three-part set, this drove for a while with two powered end cars.

In mid-May 2004, however, the second intermediate car was put back in the line and the four-part multiple unit was used again, in addition to its original composition with power cars 4090.002 and 003 and intermediate cars 7090.002 and 003. However, the set only ran in this form for a few months.

Since there were always technical problems and not all vehicles were operational for a long time, only a three-part set was available from December 2004 to December 2006. From April 2007 both sets ran in three parts for a while.

From the beginning of October 2010, even after a long breakdown of some vehicles, both sets were in use, namely as 4090.002-9 + 7090.001-4 + 6090.001-6 and 4090.001-1 + 7090.003-0 + 4090.003-7. The intermediate car 7090.002-2 was parked in the HW St. Pölten. It serves as a spare parts dispenser in order to keep the downtime due to ordering spare parts as short as possible.

Consideration was given to converting two intermediate cars into control cars. In this way, the four-part two-part multiple units would have been created, which could have been used more flexibly and would have made the use of the 5090 series on the mountain route unnecessary.

In 2013, the two multiple units became superfluous due to the new delivery of the NÖVOG ET 1 to 9 in scheduled service and are currently (June 2015) shut down.

In July 2015, power cars 4090.001 and 4090.003 were retrofitted on the route between St. Pölten Alpenbahnhof and Ober-Grafendorf as part of test drives. After evaluating the data from the test drive and calculating the costs, the decision was made against repairs and further use on the Mariazellerbahn.

Use on the Pinzgauer local railway

Ultimately it was decided to hand over all vehicles to the Pinzgauer local railway . It is planned to put the intermediate and control cars back into operation and, if the necessary funding is provided by the EU, to convert the railcars into accumulator railcars .

An intermediate car with a low-floor control car has been in use at the Pinzgauer Lokalbahn since 2019 and a control car is being prepared for operation in Zell am See . The remaining wagons were parked at the Pinzgauer Lokalbahn depot in Zell am See-Süd .

literature

Web links

Commons : ÖBB 4090  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Die Mariazellerbahn / Triebwagen 4090 ( Memento from April 3, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) (accessed June 13, 2015)
  2. ↑ Photo documentation test drive July 1, 2015 , accessed on July 2, 2015
  3. ↑ Rail Business, Vol. 35/15, p 6, DVV Media Group, Hamburg 2015
  4. ^ Image documentation [1] , accessed on November 17, 2015