DB class 403 (1973)
| DB class 403 | |
|---|---|
 DB class 403 (1975 in Nuremberg)
|
|
| Numbering: | 403 001 to 006 404 001 to 003 404 101 to 103 |
| Number: | three units |
| Manufacturer: | LHB, MBB, AEG, BBC, Siemens |
| Year of construction (s): | 1973 |
| Retirement: | 1993 |
| Axis formula : | Bo'Bo '+ Bo'Bo' + Bo'Bo '+ Bo'Bo' |
| Gauge : | 1435 mm ( standard gauge ) |
| Length over buffers: | 27,450 mm (end car) 27,160 mm (middle car) |
| Bogie axle base: | 2600 mm |
| Service mass: | 235.7 t |
| Top speed: | 200 km / h (220 km / h intended by design) |
| Continuous output : | 3840 kW |
| Starting tractive effort: | 200 kN |
| Driving wheel diameter: | 1050 mm |
| Power system : | 15 kV 16.7 Hz ~ |
| Drive: | Rubber ring cardan |
| Brake: | electrical resistance brake , compressed air disc brake , magnetic rail brake |
| Train control : | Indusi , LZB |
| Coupling type: | Scharfenberg |
| Seats: | 45 (end car) 51 (middle car) 24 + 18 (dining car) |
| Classes : | 1. |
| Particularities: | AFB |
The class 403 is a former multiple unit of the Deutsche Bundesbahn , which was built in only three copies. As the first German high-speed train in multiple unit design, it is an early forerunner of the Intercity Express and was considered a parade train for the Deutsche Bundesbahn in the 1970s.
Each unit consisted of two powered end cars and two powered intermediate cars. The intermediate cars were referred to as the 404 series. One of the two was an open seating car (class 404.0), the other was designed as a half dining car with 24 seats (class 404.1).
Because of the characteristic front design, the train was nicknamed Donald Duck and Great White Shark .
history
Operational use
The order to build the three multiple units was placed on May 24, 1970.
On March 2, 1973, the first multiple unit was handed over to the Deutsche Bundesbahn. Scheduled use began with the 1974/75 winter timetable. The operational use of the first-class InterCity service at the time only lasted until the winter timetable 1978/1979. In the four years of scheduled operation, the train mainly served its main route between Munich and Bremen .
The inflexible and costly operation of a four-car train, the lack of suitable routes, the labor-intensive half-dining car and the introduction of the second class of car in the Intercity 1979 made the multiple units superfluous. As a result, the trains were temporarily only used for measurement and special trips.
Lufthansa Airport Express
At the endeavors of the Ministry of Transport , the multiple units were used as the Lufthansa Airport Express from March 28, 1982 on behalf of and painted by the German airline Lufthansa .
The trains ran between Düsseldorf and Frankfurt am Main airports , sometimes as five-part trains or with two coupled units, as a direct and (for Lufthansa) inexpensive aircraft replacement. The trains could only be used with plane tickets and were operationally classified as TEE .
The left-hand Rhine route traveled on offered travelers the pleasure of one of the most beautiful German railway lines. The Lufthansa Airport Express was used until the 1990s to avoid short domestic flights.
Constructive features
technology
Each car of the multiple unit is driven separately and carries the necessary drive technology under the floor of the car. It was only with the ICE 3 , which was given the series number 403 again, that Deutsche Bahn returned to a comparable concept for long-distance transport.
Manufacturers were LHB for the end cars, MBB for the intermediate cars, MAN for the bogies and AEG , BBC and Siemens for the electrics.
One of the innovations of the multiple unit was the track curve -dependent tilting technology , which made it possible to travel 30 percent higher speeds than conventional trains on winding routes. For its maximum speed of 200 km / h, however, it also needed well-developed routes such as the Munich – Augsburg line . There he completed numerous test drives for the Federal Railroad Central Office in Munich , with a documented top speed of 225 km / h.
The car bodies could be inclined by up to four degrees in curves, but due to the pantographs fixed to the roof , only a maximum inclination of two degrees was practicable. Since the roll axis was also very low, there were complaints from passengers who complained of nausea when cornering. The tilting technology was then completely deactivated in normal operation. From then on, the air suspension installed for the tilting technology was only used for travel comfort.
Numerous assemblies of the multiple unit originated from the large series of the 420 series designed for S-Bahn traffic . The self-supporting car body and the outer skin were made of aluminum . Corrosion damage and material fatigue due to insufficiently dimensioned load-bearing parts led to the series being decommissioned at an early stage.
The car bodies had sloping side walls because of the tilting technology. The window panes were coated with gold to reduce the amount of sunlight entering the car. The doors were designed as pivoting and sliding doors and had a folding step that was extended on low platforms.
The pantographs were located on the end cars, one of the end cars was prepared for the assembly of a second pantograph according to Swiss standards, one of which was also installed at times.
In InterCity operations, the multiple unit always ran as a four-part set with two intermediate cars, but later on as the Lufthansa Airport Express (LHA), three or five-part trains with one or three intermediate cars were also used. The construction also allowed the coupling and driving of up to three complete sets, but in practice only up to two sets were coupled with the Lufthansa Airport Express.
Train order and seating capacity
When it went into service, the train, with its regular four-car configuration, offered a total of 183 seats, 24 of which were in the restaurant area of the class 404.1 semi-dining car. The 18 seats in the open-plan compartment of the dining car could also be used for the restaurant with plug-in tables, so they could not be reserved . As with the 601 series , as was common in InterCity traffic before 1979, only first class seats were offered. Similar to the Rheingold open- plan car, the intermediate car of the 404.0 series also had its characteristic narrow window, with each row of seats having its own window. The seating was also rotatable in the respective direction of travel.
Lufthansa later installed a galley in each of the four cars , which reduced the available space in the four-part standard composition to 151 seats. There were 36 seats in the former class 404.1 half dining car, which from then on was completely designated as a bar area. The redundant kitchen was converted into a luggage compartment.
| model series | 403.0 | 404.0 | 404.1 | 403.0 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| genus | Avm | Apm | ARpm | Avm | |
| Art | Compartments | Large area | Open plan + restaurant | Compartments | |
| Seats | DB: 183 | 45 (1 × 4 + 1 × 5 + 6 × 6) |
51 | 18 + 24 | 45 (1 × 4 + 1 × 5 + 6 × 6) |
| LH (1982): 171 | 39 (1 × 4 + 1 × 5 + 5 × 6 + luggage) |
51 | 42 (bar + luggage) |
39 (1 × 4 + 1 × 5 + 5 × 6 + luggage) |
|
| LH (1988): 151 | 35 (galley + 1 × 5 + 5 × 6 + luggage) |
45 (+ galley) |
36 (galley + bar + luggage) |
35 (galley + 1 × 5 + 5 × 6 + luggage) |
|
Painting
In order to emphasize the special status of the trains, the Deutsche Bundesbahn created a striking paintwork for the 403 series, which stood out clearly from the paintwork customary at the time. The basic color division, i.e. a dark strip of windows combined with a clearly lighter area underneath, was based on the then current pop color concept . In InterCity times, the basic color of the car body was pebble gray ( RAL 7032), like the Pop car , but the window strip was RAL 8022 black brown, lightened by RAL 2002 blood orange in a ratio of 50: 1. The two decorative strips above and below the windows were in RAL 2002 blood orange and RAL 2004 pure orange, mixed in a ratio of 1: 1.
As Lufthansa Airport Express, the color scheme corresponded to the company's corporate colors. The floor assembly was painted in RAL 8019 gray brown and the car body in RAL 7035 light gray. The belly band was made in RAL 1028 melon yellow. The letters of the lettering and the crane were in RAL 5022 night blue.
Retirement and whereabouts
A surprising end came when substantial corrosion damage to the aluminum structure of the vehicles was discovered in 1993. Neither the Deutsche Bundesbahn nor Lufthansa wanted to pay for their rectification. After the immediate withdrawal from service, the trains were parked in Nuremberg and visibly fell into disrepair.
In 2001 the vehicles were acquired by Prignitzer Eisenbahn GmbH (PEG) and towed to Berlin-Spandau. Unit 403 001/403 002 then went to Putlitz , while the other two units were parked in Meyenburg . After the PEG systems in Putlitz and Meyenburg were closed, the parked vehicles were exposed to vandalism . The Museum Association of the Prignitz Railway wanted to restore a copy to its original condition by using the other two trains as spare parts donors.
After this project failed, a private person acquired all three units at the end of 2010 and left them to the Eschenauer Kulturlokschuppen “Seku” e. V. In June 2011, the three vehicles were transferred to VIS Halberstadt, where an assessment and possibly a processing of two units should take place.
In May 2013 it was announced that negotiations were being held with National Express Rail GmbH (subsidiary of the National Express Group and IntEgro Verkehr GmbH ) about a 15-year lease starting in 2015. Initially, a four-car train is to be rented; if necessary, reinforcement of the train with additional cars should be checked. In order to make it possible to use it as an advertising medium, an examination according to § 32 EBO including new paint should be carried out by then. In addition to repairing the damage caused by vandalism, the galleys of the Lufthansa Airport Express are to be removed, the large area is to be furnished with more seats and digital train radio installed. In addition, a conversion to PZB 90 is to take place. Expert opinions expect costs of around one million euros per reconditioned car.
In January 2015, the refurbishment of a multiple unit had progressed, the first individual cars in the car body and externally were refurbished and painted in a design that is based on the original InterCity colors, but also contains elements of the new operator National Express. The traction motors are also ready. The aim is to restore at least one multiple unit to an operational condition. Interior work and complete rewiring are still pending.
The trains should possibly be used on weekends and in off-peak times as regular vehicles on the Rhein-Münsterland-Express (RE 7) in regional rail transport in North Rhine-Westphalia , which National Express has been operating since December 2015. By renting a replacement train, the National Express multiple unit was no longer required.
National Express has withdrawn from the project. Richter and his company TRI Train Rental planned to continue the refurbishment, the completion of the four-part ET-403 set was planned for 2020. Due to expected problems with the approval of required new components and the subsequent maintenance, the project was postponed in favor of other vehicles.
literature
- Zeno Pillmann: The class 403/404 express multiple unit of the Deutsche Bundesbahn . In: Eisenbahn-Revue International . Minirex, 1999, ISSN 1421-2811 , pp. 103 ff., 162 ff., 220 ff .
- Gunnar Selbmann: The braked sprinter . In: railway magazine . No. 12/2012 . Alba publication, 2012, ISSN 0342-1902 , p. 6-13 .
- The ET 403 has its premiere . In: Lok-Magazin . No. 58 . Franckh'sche Verlagshandlung, W. Keller & Co. , 1973, ISSN 0458-1822 , p. 9-12 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Without an author: The further plans of the Neue Bahn . In: Bahn-Special , Die Neue Bahn . No. 1, 1991, Gera-Nova-Verlag, Munich, p. 78 f.
- ↑ The ET 403/404 on Reisezugwagen.eu, accessed on September 6, 2018
- ↑ ET403.com. Retrieved September 17, 2011 .
- ↑ Negotiations with National Express , Eschenauer Kulturlokschuppen “Seku” e. V., May 5, 2013
- ↑ 2013 - The anniversary year! ( Memento of the original from February 8, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , et403.de
- ↑ Ongoing repair of the ET 403/404 . In: Eisenbahn-Revue International . No. 11 , 2013, ISSN 1421-2811 , p. 599 .
- ^ Report ( Memento from February 3, 2015 in the Internet Archive ), Der Modelleisenbahner , December 2014
- ↑ ET 403 - FANPAGE. Retrieved September 23, 2018 .
