Commuter car
As a commuter cars are coaches of the railways referred to that preferred for the transport used.
In contrast to express train passenger cars, they are designed for quick passenger changes, so they have many wide entrance doors. Especially in S-Bahn traffic, the platform height and boarding height are usually coordinated with one another; there are large catchment areas at the boarding points and no doors between boarding and passenger areas. These days, commuter cars are always open- plan cars with a central aisle. The interior is designed for the greatest possible capacity (including standing room) (therefore double-decker cars are often found in local transport ) and designed to be more robust than in long-distance transport in order to counteract vandalism . Toilets are only available in a small number or, if the journey takes about 30 minutes, they do not exist at all. The first class , if available, only offers a few seats and differs little in comfort from the second; The convenience feature in local transport is rather the lower occupancy. Since local trains often change the direction of travel, local vehicles are mostly capable of push-pull trains and are sometimes designed as control vehicles .
Germany
Up to 1920, especially in metropolitan areas, compartment cars without side aisles were procured for local traffic, which still seemed suitable thanks to their many entry doors, while side aisle cars were already being used in long-distance traffic. In rural areas, open-plan cars with end platforms dominated, the last large series of which were the Donnerbüchsen built from 1921 .
For express trains , the express train wagons with double-wide entrances at both ends were procured as standard from 1930 (type E 30), initially with a riveted car body design. With welded car bodies and other improvements, such as larger windows, a series similar to the E 36 came into operation in 1936. Equipped with car aprons, another type was put into service from 1942. The first series of these cars initially only had a concertina gate as a transition. After the Second World War , the conversion took place with bellows transitions. They were used until the 1970s and were last only to be found in local trains.
In order to be able to deal quickly with the shortage of wagons in World War II, makeshift passenger wagons were created whose design was derived from boxcars.
After several single- and double-decker prototypes, from 1951 the DB procured the center entry coaches of the later type -yl, which with their additional entry areas in the middle were designed for express train traffic, even if they were initially used in light express trains. In the mid-1950s, they were finally transferred to express train service. Only in the late 1970s did these cars migrate to local trains.
After the Second World War there were many obsolete wagons, but there was also a great need for local transport wagons that could not be met with new buildings. From 1953, the DB converted older designs into three- and from 1958 into four-axle rebuild wagons , and the DR from 1960 into two-, three- and from 1965 into four-axle Reko wagons .
From 1959 the DB procured the n-wagons (silver pieces) with double-wide entrances that are no more than a quarter of the car length away from any place, and for the first time pneumatic door locking. In the 1960s to 1980s, this was the most common type of wagon in local and express trains of the DB. In 1976 prototypes from LHB followed , which were intended to be the successor to the Silberlinge / silver coins, but were not built in large series.
For the S-Bahn systems Rhein-Ruhr and Nürnberg , the x-cars were built from 1981 (prototypes 1979), which were optimized with three entrances without steps and air-sprung bogies for a level entry from the 96 cm platform (S-Bahn platform) are.
From 1978 the RAW Halberstadt built center entry cars for the DR with a door arrangement similar to the DB Silberlinge.
As early as 1952, double-decker cars were built for the DR in series, initially as double-decker trains with three-axle Jakobs bogies and double-decker articulated trains with short intermediate elements. From 1973 double-deck single wagons with low entrances followed in several series. The DB, DR and Deutsche Bahn have procured numerous other series of double-decker wagons to date, which have replaced single-decker wagons on many routes.
Since the 1990s, locomotive-hauled trains with commuter cars have increasingly been replaced by railcars .
Austria
Similar to Germany and other countries, after the Second World War, Austria ran a program to convert obsolete two- and four-axle wagons; these converted wagons were known as Spantenwagen in Austria .
In the years 1955 to 1961, several small series of newly built wagons with two central entrances were also produced, followed from 1962 by 26.4 m long central entrance wagons , which were similar to the express train wagons of the DB, but had some more modern features such as folding doors.
The Schlieren wagons, built from 1965 onwards under a Swiss license, and their successors , which were procured in series from 1981, were initially used in long-distance domestic transport and later went into local transport.
In 1996, the ÖBB double-decker coaches followed as the latest development for local trains hauled by locomotives.
Switzerland
For a long time, no special local transport vehicles were procured in Switzerland, but rather older, large-capacity domestic long-distance transport vehicles used in local transport. A large part of the standard cars I and II (built between 1956 and 1976) were converted into intermediate cars for the NPZ multiple units from the 1980s .
The arrangement, width and floor height of the entrances to the lightweight steel wagons were , however, already designed with local traffic in mind, even if these wagons initially ran in city express trains.
From 1990 double-deck coaches were procured for the Zurich S-Bahn , which run coupled with the SBB Re 450 to form fixed shuttle trains (DPZ).