DR saloon car 10215
| DR Salon 6ü-40 | |
|---|---|
| Numbering: | 10215 (1940), 10850 (1952) |
| Number: | 1 |
| Manufacturer: | Wagenbauanstalt Wegmann & Co. |
| Year of construction (s): | 1940 |
| Retirement: | 1954 |
| Genre : | Salon 6ü-40 |
| Gauge : | 1435 mm ( standard gauge ) |
| Length over buffers: | 24,300 mm |
| Trunnion Distance: | 16,960 mm |
| Bogie axle base: | 2 × 3600 mm |
| Service mass: | 72.9 t |
| Seats: | 1 saloon with 4 seats, 2 compartments with 1 bed each, 1 cupboard |
The saloon car 10215 (Salon 6ü-40 10215 Bln) of the Deutsche Reichsbahn was the most elaborate of the saloon cars built for Hermann Göring . After the Second World War , it was completely rebuilt, but burned out in 1954 and was then scrapped.
history
Reichsbahn time
The car was commissioned in 1940, built within just eight weeks and put into operation in September 1940. The cost was RM 630,000 . After a short test phase, it was added as the fourth / twelfth car in Göring's special train “ Asia ” as a “work car”. In addition, the car had a large card table in the salon . The car remained on this train until the end of the war. The car was assigned to the Anhalter Bahnhof in Berlin .
The car was particularly luxuriously equipped - even for a saloon car: It was 80 cm longer than the saloon cars of other Nazi sizes. The loungers and some of the armchairs were covered with brocade , the wall paneling was made of maidu , rosewood , cherry tree and teak . The salon was larger, had four, but tired of the usual three window axes. The bed was wider than usual - just like the Reichsmarschall. The bathroom had a bathtub that was arranged lengthways, which is extremely unusual, since usually only hip bathtubs were installed across the direction of travel. All of this resulted in the enormous total weight of almost 73 tons , which in turn required two three-axle bogies.
But none of this prevented the Reichsmarschall from expressing and enforcing innumerable small and larger requests for change. These included, among other things
- the installation of a playback system for sound films. This was hidden behind a bookshelf in the salon, but it was enough to take four books from the shelf to create enough space for the light beam.
- the exchange of the emblem of the Reichsbahn for that of the Reichsmarschall ( imperial eagle with crossed marshal's baton ). The Reichsbahn followed this very reluctantly, as it had safety concerns about revealing who the respective user of a saloon car was.
crew
On April 26, 1945, US forces confiscated the vehicle near Berchtesgaden . It was initially parked together with other saloon cars in the Frankfurt (Main) Süd train station. There the commander of the field railways in Germany, Colonel Stoddard, chose it as his official vehicle, for which purpose the car was relocated to Stuttgart . Shortly afterwards it was placed as the first / fourth car in the special train A-600 of Generals Lucian K. Truscott and Geoffrey Keyes in Heidelberg . It was now number 65. In 1949 it was back in Frankfurt (Main) Süd.
German Federal Railroad
The German Federal Railroad (DB) received the car back on May 23, 1953 "because of inefficiency". At the time it was in a rather worn condition. The DB initially had no suitable use for the vehicle, considered a conversion and from July 6, 1950 initially used it for the Federal Minister of Transport , Hans-Christoph Seebohm , whose otherwise used saloon car had to be overhauled. For this purpose, a compartment for a carriage attendant and a small tea kitchen was built into the former cupboard.
After this mission, the DB again considered converting it in different versions, both as a saloon car and a passenger car for public transport of the (old) 1st and 2nd class or selling the vehicle. Offers from Argentina and South Africa were available. However, the sale failed due to the high price expectations of the DB (516,000 DM ). The planned conversions as a salon or passenger coach also ultimately turned out to be too expensive. So on January 25, 1951, the DB decided to convert the vehicle into a company car. That was the cheapest option, because it essentially meant “gutting” the vehicle: after the conversion, the majority of the vehicle was taken up by a 15.5 m long open space, either empty as a dance floor or furnished with 10 tables and 40 chairs or could be set up in row seating, for example for film screenings. A bar, a film projection system , a radio and a record player have also been installed here. The car was also given two compartments, one for the tour guide with a view of the open space and a small kitchen with a propane gas cooker. The car was painted steel blue with a silver roof and silver decorative stripes and the inscription "Deutsche Bundesbahn" was added on the side. Wegmann & Co again received the order . The renovation began on July 14, 1952 and was completed in October of the same year. The car was again stationed in Frankfurt am Main and was given the designation WG6üm-40/51 and the car number 10850 Ffm.
The DB found the conversion so successful that it presented the vehicle at the German Transport Exhibition in 1953 . During an operation, it burned out completely on June 15, 1954 due to damage to its propane gas system in Würzburg main station . The ruined vehicle was brought back to the repair shop in Frankfurt, but was taken out of service on November 6, 1954 and demolished in early 1955.
description
The car had an additional, wooden sun protection roof that lay over the metal roof and was retained through all the modifications.
Saloon car
The car originally had the following structure: There were closed entry platforms at both ends. The sequence of rooms was incidentally:
- Salon (7.4 m long)
and, arranged along a side aisle:
- Large sleeping compartment (2.8 m long)
- Toilet room
- bathroom
- Small sleeping compartment with built-in wash basin (2.5 m long)
- Cupboard space (a little over 3 m long)
The large sleeping compartment, toilet room, bathroom and small sleeping compartment were once again connected to one another, regardless of the side corridor.
Social car
After the conversion to a company car, there were still closed entry platforms at both ends. The room sequence also consisted of:
- Kitchen (2.49 m long)
- Large room (15.5 m long)
- Guide compartment (1.49 m long)
- Companion compartment (2.04 m long)
literature
- Dietrich Bothe: Not entirely normal ... Pictures from the locomotive testing office - rarities in front of the camera . In: EisenbahnGeschichte 96 (October / November 2019), pp. 4–11.
- Walter Haberling: The Chancellor's saloon car in the museum. In: Eisenbahnkurier , Issue 12/1990, pp. 144–150.
Remarks
- ↑ Haberling, p. 145, writes that the floors and partly the walls in the bathroom were clad with Mettlach tiles , which the photos (Haberling, p. 147) do not reflect.
- ↑ Göring wanted the same for the saloon car 10205 (Haberling, p. 146).
- ↑ It was the salon car 10391 (Haberling, p. 148)