Light steel wagon (Switzerland, narrow gauge)

Lightweight steel cars are in Switzerland coaches of the railroad that made steel are built, yet so weight-saving as possible. In contrast to the wooden box car, the underframe alone does not have to give the car the necessary stability, but the entire car body is designed as a self-supporting structure - as a kind of tube. The Swiss narrow-gauge railways usually have steep gradients, so the weight of the vehicles plays a special role. For this reason, most of the railways have switched directly from wooden box wagons to light steel wagons, in some cases even directly to light metal wagons (aluminum). Only the Rhaetian Railway (RhB) procured 30 heavy steel wagons around 1930.

Center entry car

The construction of light steel wagons for Swiss narrow-gauge railways began shortly before the Second World War and parallel to the construction of light metal wagons in the form of center entry wagons. Their history is summarized in one article regardless of the choice of material.

→ Main article : Center entry car (Switzerland, narrow gauge)

Type SIG 1948

B 73 of the Appenzeller Bahnen (today B 282) parked in Appenzell in 2005

In 1948, two very different railways received a total of four identical lightweight steel wagons from SIG Neuhausen. Three cars C ⁴ 71-73 were delivered to the St. Gallen-Gais-Appenzell-Altstätten-Bahn (SGA) at the time , the fourth car went to the Lugano-Tesserete-Bahn (LT) as the C ⁴ 15 . The structure was very simple: eight compartments (eight windows on each side of the car) with eight seats each resulted in 64 seats and the entrance with a closed platform at each end of the car. The entrance door was made in two parts so that it could not protrude too far. The 14.57 m long wagons weighed 15 t and thus only 1 t more than the slightly shorter four-axle wooden box wagons of the SGA. Until then, the LT had only owned two-axle vehicles. After 16 years, three identical cars were rebuilt for the SGA and delivered in 1964 as the B 81–83. These wagons run on SIG Schelling bogies, while the first delivery is equipped with SIG torsion bar bogies (System Frei).

Outwardly, these 7 wagons were very similar to the 5 light express train wagons of the Montreux-Berner Oberland-Bahn (MOB) originally designated as C ⁴ 49 + 50 and ABC ⁴ 96-98 from the years 1943 and 46. However, these were still with a sheet metal box made to save steel (lack of material in World War II) and weight (limited trailer load in steep ramps).

Three wagons were still in their original area of ​​use as B 281-283 (ex 81, 73, 83) until 2015 at the Appenzeller Bahnen (AB), two wagons (71 and 72) were sold to southern France and run at Chemins de fer de Provence (CP) as XR 1371 and XR 1372. Another car (82) was converted into an AB saloon control car. The B 282 is now in use as an exhibition car. The LT car has moved to the other side of the Ceneri; it now belongs to the Società subalpina di imprese ferroviarie (SSIF, Vigezzina) as the A 130 . Of the five MOB wagons, two (49, 98) went to the Chemin de fer de La Mure in France, the rest were discarded.

Type SIG 1951

BOB light steel wagon Bi 232 in Interlaken Ost

The Berner Oberland-Bahnen also ordered a lightweight steel car from SIG. This car had one more compartment in third class, i.e. 72 seats. In addition, a toilet was installed in the middle of the car, but the platform was designed to be open, i.e. doors and front wall were dispensed with. This design had already been introduced at the neighboring BLS . The six C4 232-237 and BC4 205-210 each were delivered between 1951 and 1956. From 2000, all cars were sold to Germany (seven cars, Brohltalbahn 33-39) and France (five cars, CFBS).

The FFA conversion wagons (with beaded roof)

In order to modernize its passenger car stock, the Rhaetian Railway (RhB) first began to modernize the wooden box wagons built between 1911 and 1913, some of which had open platforms and some of which were closed (also at a later date). The car bodies were re-laminated and SIG torsion bar bogies were installed. The six B 2211–2216 received a new lightweight steel car body from FFA in 1960–1961, which was built on the old undercarriage while maintaining the pivot spacing. The position of the toilet in the middle of the car was also retained, but it was moved exactly to the middle, so that two compartments with four windows each with 32 seats were created. The seat spacing was only 1447 mm. As with the standard cars, double doors were installed on the platforms and the roof was provided with longitudinal ribs. The front wall but was rejuvenated, as the SWP Einheitswagen I . As a special feature, these wagons could be converted into medical vehicles for the army. For this they had a wide door on both sides of the foremost window on the right, through which stretchers could be loaded and unloaded. The D 4210–4212 also belonged to the medical trains, and all of these vehicles had a brake gear wheel and the lighting line for FO / BVZ for universal use. For this reason, these cars were used very intensively to Brig, initially on the Glacier Express, later as through cars. In addition, the FO repeatedly rented several of these cars to handle the peak traffic. After the merger with the BVZ, this was no longer necessary and soon afterwards the RhB began to scrap these cars.

A second series of similar cars, but now no longer as medical cars, emerged in 1962 from the A 1105-09 and the B 2202, 04, 05, 09, 10. They were given the numbers B 2251-2260 and, like the first conversion cars, kept the pivot spacing of the chassis from the original car. There are therefore three different measures. The car bodies were of the same length and the seat spacing was 1495 mm. Due to their short design, these wagons could be used to remedy the acute wagon shortage on the Bernina line in the summer months. For this purpose, they received Bernina heating cables in 1986, and in 1990 they were equipped with full equipment for year-round use on the Bernina line. At 17-18 t they were a lot heavier than the Leichtmetall EW I (11 t), but also offered 16 more seats.

Two other such wagons, albeit one window shorter, with 56 seats, were built in 1963 on the underframes of the two Berninabahn four-axle B 2233–2234 ex Berninabahn 151–152. They weighed 15 t and initially ran on the Bernina Railway without bellows. In 1969 the SIG torsion bar bogies were exchanged for SWP bogies of the same design as the light metal EW-I. The B 2234 was converted into the As 1171 "Starckes Stück" in 2002. The last rebuild wagons should have been scrapped by around 2010.

Four further conversion cars with 56 seats, but without a toilet and with open platforms, were built in 1968 and 1970 as B 203-206 for the Montreux-Berner Oberland-Bahn (MOB) on the underframes of the A 82, A 81, AB 94 and AB 95 From 1994 these cars were converted and lengthened at R + J, so that apart from the bogies one has to speak of a new construction. Today they operate as the B 203 and BD 204–206. The Z 33 post car, which was built in 1971 on the undercarriage of the A 85, is also one of these conversion cars.

Standard car I

The first narrow-gauge standard wagons I were also light steel wagons. All railways with cogwheel routes, however, relied on light metal wagons and so the later standard wagons (II, III and IV) were all made of aluminum.

→ Main article : Standard car (Switzerland, narrow gauge)

Baggage and mail trolleys

Baggage and mail wagons for the narrow-gauge railways were also built in a similar design to the passenger cars. The mail wagons were owned by PTT, which is why the PTT moved the wagons to other railways in various cases after the mail was stopped, in order to replace two- and three-axle vehicles there. Some of the light steel baggage trolleys are assigned to the standard car I, these are listed there. The wagons listed here do not have a corrugated roof in common.

number	train	Manufacturer	Installation	bogie	Type and number	comment
2	WSB	SWS	1945, 53	??	FZ 4i 55-56	Discontinued in 1977, 1980 FO DZ 4354 ex WSB 56, 2005 to Madagascar, used in the Trans Lemurie Express
2	PTT (SZB)	SWS	1957	Coil spring	Z 4i 1-2	from 1974 Z 401–402, converted to control car Zt 261–262 in 1984, from 1999 RhB BDt 1741–1742
1	PTT (LEB)	SWS	1962	Coil spring	Z 4i 4	Transferred to AB in 1972, sold to France in 2002
1	PTT (FLP)	SWS	1962	Coil spring	Z 4o 8	from 1998 NStCM X 103
2	PTT (RhB)	PAG	1964-65	-	Z 2i 11-12	Parked in 1996, from 1998 YSC / TRAVYS D 71–72 (Velo)
9	PTT (RhB)	SWS	1966-69	Coil spring	Z 4o 91-99	from 1996 13091–13099, from 1999 sold to DFB and RhB, 2 cars in Vinschgau
1	PTT (WSB)	SWS	1966	??	Z 4o 54	from 1978 Z 100 on RhB and FO, 2005 to Madagascar
18th	Total

literature

• Hans Häsler: The Berner Oberland Railways, a hundred years of railways to Lauterbrunnen and Grindelwald. Minirex, Lucerne 1990, ISBN 3-907014-04-9
• Claude Jeanmaire: The Rhaetian Railway (main network). Archive No. 19, Verlag Eisenbahn, Villigen AG 1973, ISBN 3-85649-019-1
• Michel Grandguillaume et al .: Chemin de fer Montreux Oberland Bernois. Du Léman et al. Pays-d'Enhaut, Tome 2, BVA, Lausanne 1994, ISBN 2-88125-009-2

Web links

• Narrow-gauge bogie types in the picture [1]

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Vehicle directory on the homepage of the Bahn-Betriebsgesellschaft ( memento of the original from February 26, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
2. ↑ Trans Lemurie Express on www.madarail.mg