Railway bus (Austria)
The train bus was after the Postbus and the Dr. Richard Group is the third largest Austrian intercity bus company. On January 1, 2005, it became part of the operational part of Österreichische Postbus AG , ÖBB-Postbus GmbH . The Postbus has also been owned by the Austrian Federal Railways since 2003 .
history
The Bundesbahn-Kraftwagenunternehmung was founded in 1928.
In 1933 LOBEG (Lastwagen- und Omnibus-Betriebs-Gesellschaft mbH), founded in Mödling in 1927, was taken over and then renamed KÖB (Motor Vehicle Service of ÖBB ).
From 1938 to 1945 the KÖB was incorporated into ROB ( Reichsomnibusverkehrsgesellschaft mbH).
The forced evacuation and destruction as a result of the Second World War largely brought traffic to a standstill towards the end of the war.
In 1948 the KWD (Kraftwagendienst der ÖBB) was re-established.
In the post-war period, the rail bus and the Postbus, which had been regarded as a competitor until then, shared their spheres of interest: the railway bus was left with the areas parallel to the railway lines, while the other areas were reserved for the Postbus.
The so-called Bundesbus office was set up in 1988, not least because of the events in Germany . Their task was to regulate the interaction between the rail bus and the post bus. The two bus operators, however, remained largely independent. Only the new external appearance conveyed the impression, through a common paint scheme and the name Bundesbus , that the railway bus and the post bus had been merged.
It was all the easier in 1997, after the postal administration was spun off into a private company, to dissolve the Bundesbus office again and to go separate ways. At that time, the rail bus had already been removed from the motor vehicle service (KWD) of the ÖBB due to the separation of passenger and freight traffic . In May 2002 the Austrian government announced its future plans for the two federal bus operators. As a result, the Postbus was sold to ÖBB (effective 2003). For reasons of personnel law, operations were outsourced to the new ÖBB-Postbus GmbH in October 2004. The train bus was also transferred to them on January 1, 2005. Furthermore, part of the company was privatized in the course of the year through the sale of smaller regional operations.
As a motor vehicle operation of the Austrian Federal Railways GmbH, KÖB is now a wholly owned subsidiary of ÖBB-Postbus GmbH. It holds some concessions and leases buses to ÖBB-Postbus GmbH. It is not operationally active and it has no staff of its own.
Painting schemes
- until 1938: green
- 1938–1945: red-black
- 1945–1960: ivory red brown
- 1960–1975: turquoise blue-gray
- 1975–1988: Phoenix red VWL32K white RAL9010 (public buses)
- 1975–1988: White-Phoenix Red VWL32K (coaches)
- Federal bus
- 1988–1990: Dahlia yellow-phoenix red VWL32K (public buses)
- 1988–1990: White-Dahlia-Yellow-Phoenix Red VWL32K (coaches)
- 1990–1997: Dahlia yellow-traffic red (public buses, 1993 also coaches)
- 1992–1996: Dahlia yellow-traffic red-white-gray (midibuses)
- 1994–1995: white-traffic red-dahlia yellow (coaches)
- 1999–2004: Traffic red
In addition to the standard paintwork mentioned, the rail bus also had vehicles in other, mostly regional, paint schemes. One or the other bus also had a special paint job. For cost reasons, existing buses were only given a different color scheme if they needed a new paint job anyway.
Web links
- ÖBB-Postbus GmbH - official homepage
- private page with countless pictures of Austrian rail buses and post buses , especially from Styria
- private page about all types of transport in Austria and Europe , including a section about Austrian rail and post buses
Bibliography
- Erich Novak: 70 years of vehicle service for the Austrian Federal Railways. - Self-published, 1997, ISBN 3-9500743-0-9 (detailed history of the Austrian rail bus and its vehicle fleet from the beginning to the present)