INOX TEA trolley
The INOX-TEE cars is a series of passenger cars in rail transport , which in 1964 by the French state railway SNCF specifically for TEE service to Belgium and the Netherlands have been procured. These were made from stainless steel . The French name for it is acier inoxydable . Technically, they differ considerably from the INOX-DEV wagons purchased by the SNCF from 1950 .
General
With the start of the TEE network in 1957, the SNCF only participated half-heartedly in the vehicle procurement program for this offer. While the Swiss Federal Railways and the Dutch State Railways as well as the German Federal Railroad developed new multiple units , the French only used a slightly further developed variant of their RGP 825 multiple unit. This vehicle - like that of the Italian state railway - met with criticism from the public due to its lack of comfort.
For this reason, new vehicles were developed for TEE traffic from 1964, making the SNCF the first of the railways involved in the TEE network to switch to locomotive - wagon - train for this type of train .
The main feature of this car was the stainless steel (Inox) design with side and roof beads outside the window area, as was the case with the Inox car from 1950, which was developed using a method by the American BUDD Company . As with the USI domestic express train carriages of the DEV type from 1962, the entrance doors were also moved a little towards the middle of the car. The toilets and vestibules were thus at the outer end of the car. The car length was extended from the then valid French standard length of 24.5 meters over buffers by one meter. The crossover between cars was protected with rubber beads . The type Y 24 and Y 28 were used as bogies . The cars were approved for speeds of up to 200 km / h. Open seating cars and compartment cars were procured. These dining , bar and generator car . The generator cars were necessary because the air conditioning systems of the French TEE cars required a power supply with household three-phase current 380 V 50 Hz and could not process the 1000 V to 3000 V direct or alternating current supplied by the locomotives, depending on the power system. In the end, two technically largely identical car series were also procured, all with only the first car class . The type PBA for the Paris - Brussels - Amsterdam traffic and the type Mistral 69 for the southern France traffic.
Type PBA
As the first TEE route, the Paris – Brussels – Amsterdam route was to be operated with locomotive-wagon trains instead of with multiple units (in addition to the SNCF trains of the RGP 825 series, Switzerland - Dutch community type was used there). With the “Inox look”, the French broke through the previously common wine-red-beige color scheme of TEE trains. In addition to the aforementioned inox look, the PBA wagons attracted attention with a wine-red band between the upper edge of the window and the roof edge with the inscription "Trans Europ Express" in golden-yellow letters, as in the Mistral 56 DEV series. On the aisle side of the compartment cars, the TEE inscription was omitted due to the narrower red stripe, as the upper edge of the roof of the eight side windows between the doors has been raised to ensure that standing passengers can enjoy a comfortable view.
The type A8uj compartment coaches (the “j” stood for Inox) had eight compartments with six seats. The open- plan coaches (type A8tuj) had fictitiously eight compartments and were designed as hall coaches with the seating arrangement 2 + 1 in face-to-face seating, which corresponded to those of the electrically powered Swiss TEE train of the type RAe . Both car types thus had 48 first class seats. There were also A5rtuj open plan cars with a kitchen and A3rtuj type bar cars. Meals were served from the kitchen carts in several open-plan carts that had large fold-out tables for this purpose. This catering concept was inspired by the Pullman Express trains from the pre-war era. The energy supply was provided by a combined generator and baggage car with two seat compartments of the type A2Dxj.
These cars were used in the TEE trains Brabant , Étoile du Nord , L'Oiseau bleu and Île de France from 1964 . TEE trains to Cologne and Dortmund such as Paris-Ruhr and Molière were added later.
The SNCF has developed new four-system locomotives of the CC 40100 series for these car sets . Locomotives from the Belgian series SNCB 16 and SNCB 18 were also on display. Between Liège and Cologne / Dortmund, German four-system locomotives of the 184 series were sometimes used in front of these cars.
Belgium
The Belgian State Railways also procured six PBA-type cars for PBA traffic , namely A8tuj open-plan carriages to compensate for kilometers with the SNCF.
Type Mistral 69
Although at the end of 1969 a fleet of TEE wagons with a smooth outer skin, cambered wagon walls and prepared for tilting train use appeared almost simultaneously (type Grand Confort), in 1969 the SNCF continued the INOX design in a further developed form. For the TEE trains Mistral and others in the Mediterranean region (such as Rhodania ) - but also for use in Switzerland and Italy - new Inox-type wagons were purchased. In the Mistral, these replaced the Mistral 56 air conditioning cars based on the Inox-DEV type. a. from 1970 entered the TEE Goethe (Paris Est - Frankfurt / Main). The Mistral 69 cars were similar to the PBA series; In contrast to this, all windows were now as high as before on the aisle side of the compartment cars and the red stripe with the TEE lettering was correspondingly higher. In addition to the types A8tuj and A8uj, full dining cars of the type VRuj and bar car A 3 ruj were purchased. In the beginning, the bar carts even had hairdressing compartments and a kiosk for travel items. The generator car had now four fictitious seat compartments in an open plan and has been called A 4 referred Dtux.
Switzerland
The SBB also owned five Mistral 69 cars, which, together with the SNCF cars, were used for TEE trains from France to Switzerland. For example, they were used in the TEE Cisalpin , which was operated with these cars between 1974 and 1984. The cars were classified as Am 61 85 18-89 000-004. The cars were only built in 1974 and have always been maintained in France . However, they were used quite freely by the SNCF, as they ran in kilometer compensation (they had to reach the mileage of the TEE wagons on the SBB section of the route, where was irrelevant). The only difference between the cars and the SNCF cars was the car number. The exterior paintwork and interior fittings corresponded to the TEE version of the INOX wagons. With the opening of the TGV Sud-Est , the wagons were sold to the SNCF. In return, the SBB bought two TGV compositions that are used according to the same principle of compensation in kind.
modification
After the TEE network in Europe largely disintegrated in 1987, many cars of both types (PBA, Mistral) were converted to second-class seats. For this purpose, eight seats were built into the coupés; the open-plan cars were given a new 2 + 2 seating regardless of the distance between the windows. These cars could be recognized by a green stripe on the roof edge with no insignia. The seats in the generator car were released for second class without any modifications. These wagons were now mainly used in express trains on the Paris – Brussels – Amsterdam route.
Whereabouts
At the end of the 1990s, the SNCF sold 44 of the remaining TEE open seating first class to Cuba . There they run in the air-conditioned Tren francés between Havana and Santiago de Cuba .
Summata
In total, both types (PBA and Mistral 69) were built:
- 39 A 8 tuj, 6 for SNCB , 5 for SBB
- 42 A 8 uj
- 13 A 5 rtuj or Vruj (dining car)
- 5 A 3 rtuj, (bar car) for Paris – Brussels – Amsterdam
- 4 Aruxj, (bar car) for Mistral
- 19 A 4 Dtuxj or A 4 Duxj, generator / luggage / seating car
122 cars in total.