Apron car
A series of German express train wagons that were put into service between 1936 and 1951 is referred to as the skirted wagon . These passenger cars were designed to be particularly streamlined in order to minimize air resistance at the higher driving speeds that were aimed at at the time. It was named after the "apron" on the side member, which covered the free space under the car floor.
Express train passenger car of the Deutsche Reichsbahn
History of origin
After several test and development designs in the first half of the 1930s, welded express train cars were first mass-procured by the DR in 1935. With these type 35 cars, the first steps were taken to reduce drag. The set-back entrances were retained, but the side wall panels were extended beyond the end walls and bent towards the center of the track , while the roofs at the ends of the wagons were given a slight arch. The enlargement of the compartments while reducing the number of compartments also increased travel comfort. On this occasion, the dimensions of the first and second class compartments were brought into line with each other.
After the positive experience with high-speed rolling stock such as the Fliegender Hamburger express railcar and the steam-hauled Henschel-Wegmann train in special services, the Deutsche Reichsbahn also intended to further increase the speed of long-distance trains from normal express train wagons. Because of the intended use at a top speed of 150 km / h, special emphasis had to be placed on further improving the air resistance.
In 1936 the Wegmann wagon factory delivered the first six test wagons in streamlined design as the C4ü-36a to the DR. Later, two wagons from the current ABC4ü-36 series were used as development vehicles for the streamlined design. After successful testing, the Deutsche Reichsbahn ordered a first series with 18 first and second class cars (AB4ü-38) and 15 third class cars (C4ü-38). Twelve more third-class cars were commissioned as test vehicles for air heating. Suppliers included Wegmann in Kassel , Linke-Hofmann-Lauchhammer AG in Breslau and MAN in Nuremberg .
At the same time, the central Reichsbahn offices in Berlin and Munich were assigned the task of training and purchasing five third- class lightweight wagons . Special features of the RZA Munich wagons, which were manufactured by the Uerdingen wagon factory using lightweight shell construction, were beads in the side walls and roof, rounded window corners, corrugated iron floor and a smaller apron. In contrast, the four cars supplied by O&K to the RZA Berlin were largely similar in appearance to the series vehicles. The fifth O&K wagon was ultimately to have an apron that ran through the bogies , but could no longer be completed due to the outbreak of war. Compared to vehicles of conventional construction (39.7 tons), weight savings of up to 12 tons were achieved in the lightweight test cars, depending on the design. Based on the Berlin design, a total of 400 lightweight express train wagons were ordered at the end of April 1939, according to which the delivery of 150 AB4ü, 50 B4ü and 200 C4ü was planned. However, the entire order was canceled shortly after the start of the war.
In 1938, WUMAG in Görlitz also commissioned a lightweight luggage trolley as a development vehicle in a streamlined form, which was delivered in 1941.
As early as mid-1938, a total of 650 conventionally designed cars were ordered as part of the 1939 vehicle program, of which only 432 could be delivered due to the war. The delivery also dragged on until the end of 1940. As with type 35, the only difference between the first and second class compartments was their furnishings, so that the two classes ABC4ü and BC4ü could be designed identically in the wagon construction part. The same would have applied to the class B4ü, which was borrowed from the class AB4ü in terms of vehicle construction. As a result of the outbreak of war, however, no B4ü was delivered.
Another 30 ABC4ü-39 and 285 C4ü-38 were commissioned in 1941. While the mixed-class cars could all be delivered, only 31 third-class cars were still delivered. The rest of the orders were canceled due to insufficient steel allocation.
In total, the following cars were built:
| DR genus | DB category (UIC) | First year of construction | Number planned | Number built | Car numbers (DR) | Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| C4ü-36a | Level 364 | 1936 | 6th | 6th | 17 122 - 17 123 17 126 - 17 129 |
Development type |
| ABC4ü-36 | 1938 | 2 | 2 | 14 359-14 360 | Development design as part of a larger car series | |
| AB4ü-38 | Aüe 310 | 1939 | 168 | 103 | 11 626 - 11 728 | |
| C4ü-38 | Level 366 Level 365 |
1939 | 612 | 310 | 19 195 - 19 221 19 227 - 19 471 19 497 - 19 534 |
19 210 - 19 221 with air heating; five cars converted into office or news cars before acceptance |
| C4ü-Berlin | 1939 | 5 | 4th | 19 190 - 19 193 | Development vehicle for lightweight construction, type O&K, 19 194 not completed | |
| C4ü-Munich | Level 366 | 1939 | 5 | 5 | 19 222 - 19 226 | Development vehicle for lightweight construction, type Uerdingen |
| ABC4ü-39 | ABüe 334 | 1940 | 130 | 65 | 214 001 - 214 065 | |
| B4ü-39 | - | - | 20th | - | (15 031 - 15 050) | not built |
| BC4ü-39 | ABüe 335 ABüe 336 |
1939 | 80 | 65 | 215 501 - 215 565 | at DB partially converted into ABC4üwe |
| Pw4ü-40 | Du 948 | 1941 | 1 | 1 | 105 885 | Development vehicle for lightweight construction |
- DR car classes : three-class
- DB car classes: three-class up to 1956, two-class from 1956
design type
Features of the cars, which were otherwise similar to the previous series from 1935, were the entrance doors that were flush with the car body , the aprons on the side member, which was responsible for the name of the car series, and the car wall that was rounded up to 150 millimeters from the buffer ends . Because of the vehicle gauge, the doors were designed as folding doors. This gave the cars their typical shapely appearance. They were painted in the bottle green of the pre-war Reichsbahn, the belt strap and the side member were made black. The seats in the third class were partly upholstered, partly wooden slatted benches were built in, as in the previous car. When building the vehicles, so-called home building materials were sometimes used .
Use in the post-war period
Many apron carriages were destroyed during the Second World War. The remainder were found after the war in the equipment park of the Deutsche Bundesbahn (DB), Deutsche Reichsbahn (DR), Austrian Federal Railways ( ÖBB ) and other European state railway administrations in East and West.
The SWDE in the French occupation zone of Germany introduced in 1951 under the name C4üwe-50/38 ten unchanged replicas of the skirt car third car class in service.
From 1951 the DB used a large part of the Schürzenwagen in the newly created Rheingold Express along the Rhine until 1962. In return, the cars were given a blue exterior paintwork with white decorative stripes. The rest of the vehicle fleet drove in normal express and express train traffic . The many AB wagons in particular were also used as mixed-class wagons in train sets that otherwise consisted of Silberling wagons or other modern types of trains until the late 1970s for express trains. The last wagons, only used in military traffic, were retired in 1984, but some were converted to construction train wagons .
The DR apron wagons were marked as usage group D1. From 1961 the wagons served as the first donor vehicles for the modernization wagons , after which older donor wagons (group 35, 28, etc.) were also used. They received completely new car bodies and interior fittings. Basically, only the frame and the running gear with the Görlitz III bogies were used. The former donor vehicles can be recognized by the aprons remaining on the vehicle ("apron mod"). The last two apron cars 243-012 and 243-212 were withdrawn from the inventory in 1969 and 1970 to compensate for modernization cars without having received their EDP numbers.
The ÖBB also took over a large part of the apron wagons. Like almost all of the former cars from the pre-war era, these were modernized at the end of the 1950s. From the outside, these cars were at the UIC - sliding windows and the cultivated Gummiwulstübergängen be seen. The last cars, the color of which changed from typical Austrian fir green to jaffa orange in the 1970s, are still in use today. Only one car, the lounge car number 11, which serves as a dining car, received the pure orange and light gray Eurofima C1 paintwork .
Dining and sleeping cars for Mitropa and Reichsbahn
Dining car
Analogous to the previous usage groups of the Reichsbahn, the dining and sleeping car operator Mitropa also had wagons in the skirted car design developed. In contrast to the seating car, the dining car developed by Wumag in Görlitz from 1937 onwards was to be 26 meters long. When the war began two years later, this project was not pursued any further. Instead, the length of 23.5 meters became mandatory for the dining cars manufactured from 1939. In contrast to the seated carriages, the aprons were part of the load-bearing structure. These new WR4ü-39s were quite heavy with a weight of 51 tons. That is why the Görlitz III bogies had to be retrofitted with a fourth suspension.
The interior paneling of the walls was made of sycamore , the benches in a 2 + 1 arrangement were covered with green artificial leather. The exterior painting in burgundy red corresponded to the usual Mitropa scheme. The first series of 40 cars (half in Görlitz and half by Linke-Hofmann-Lauchhammer AG in Breslau) was delivered to Mitropa in 1939. Wumag was able to deliver a further series of 30 vehicles to Mitropa in 1940. From a planned third series with 40 cars, two of which were planned as lightweight cars, only five slightly modified cars were produced. The allocated steel contingent would have been enough for 20 cars. There was no allocation for more cars, and the DR dining car courses were discontinued due to the war.
The car bodies remaining in the factory could no longer be completed. The Deutsche Reichspost took over seven of these and had radio beacon cars built from them (see paragraph #Bahnpostwagen ). The other eight bodyshell cars were stored in repair shops.
After the end of the Second World War, some apron dining cars were transported to the Soviet Union as reparations . The remainder that was not destroyed by the war was rebuilt by the Mitropa repair shop in Gotha. A dining car was converted into a sleeping car for Mitropa, which was only responsible for the territory of the Deutsche Reichsbahn .
The wagons that remained in the western occupation zones served Allied purposes after the war. However, after 1948 the car bodies remaining in the AW could now be finished. The German Sleeping and Dining Car Company ( DSG ), which was founded by the Deutsche Bundesbahn in the east as a counterpart to Mitropa , was able to add 30 apron dining cars as WR4ü-39 to the operating equipment park by 1949. In addition, the cars were slightly modernized and got new kitchen equipment. They were mainly used in the new long-distance express train network of the DB and some other high-quality D-trains.
The bellows protecting the transition at the end of the car were replaced by rubber bulges from 1958 , which required a new steel attachment. Air conditioning systems were installed at the same time as this modernization measure. Since the bogies were exchanged from 1968 onwards for those of the Minden-Deutz MD 34 type, the dining cars of this type could be used in trains up to 160 km / h. The car designation changed to WRügh 152. The first pop car of the DB was an apron dining car with a red ribbon and a light gray belly rib. In the 1970s, the vehicles were given the new ocean blue-beige paint of the era. Before the apron dining cars were retired in 1984, they were last in car passenger trains used the DB.
Sleeping car
As with the dining car, Mitropa also procured sleeping cars that resembled the current type of seating car, although the interior concept, apart from the interior fittings, remained unchanged since 1923. Thus, the 20 WLAB4ü-39 sleeping cars of the first and second class delivered to Mitropa in 1939 corresponded in their layout to the previous series, but were also designed in the new streamlined skirted car design. As with the dining car, the dead weight of these cars was quite high at 54.6 tons. In contrast to the dining car, most of the sleeping cars were lost in World War II.
The bed wagons, which came to Mitropa from 1941 and also corresponded to the skirted wagon design, represented a new type of construction. The traveler should be offered a more private atmosphere. However, there were also two-bed compartments. Two of these cars, now 26 meters long and two-story because of the space requirements, were completed by Wegmann in Kassel in 1941. LHW supplied Mitropa with a one-story variant with single compartments, whereby the limited space was noticeable. The Wegmann wagons ended up in the DSG stock after the war, one LHW wagon was able to line up Mitropa, which was now only active in the GDR, the other wagon burned down. The wagons that were taken over were modernized by adding rubber bulges and replacing some of the bogies with those of the Minden-Deutz design. By 1968, however, all sleeping cars were no longer operational.
The Deutsche Reichsbahn put other sleeping car variants of the Schürzenwagen series into service in 1951. In terms of design, these cars with 16 seats were based on the C4ü seat car from 1939. Eight type WLAB4ül wagons were used in the Red Army holiday express trains on the Berlin – Brest route. By 1979 all vehicles had been decommissioned, including one for the GDR government's special train. Third-class sleeping cars were also built in 1951 as WLC4ül at VEB Waggonbau Bautzen . These 28 cars were also used on the Berlin – Brest trains. It was later used as a type BC4ü couchette car and taken out of service between 1970 and 1976.
Rail mail car
As is usual in Germany, rail mail cars of the Schürzenwagen-type were also put into service. In 1938 the Reichspostzentralamt Kassel received an order from the local Waggonfabrik Gebrüder Credé to develop a rail mail car based on an apron car. Twelve of the planned 22.9 meter long prototypes, which were scheduled for delivery in 1939, could not be put into service as Post4ü-a / 21 until 1941. The number stands for the (rounded) car body length (not the LüP !), The letter "a" designates the all-mail car for parcels and letters.
In the same year, another 53 cars followed in series delivery. Christoph & Unmack in Niesky and Westwaggon in Mainz were also involved in this order . The other details such as the arrangement of the double-leaf revolving doors and the interior layout corresponded to the predecessor types of types 28 and 35/36. Another series of only five rail mail cars was delivered in 1942. Compared to the previous series, they were a little shorter at 21.35 meters. These vehicles, which were primarily intended for Scandinavian traffic, had a loading space in addition to the mail room and were called Post4ü-bI / 20.
As early as September 1940, another 55 rail mail cars, again 22.9 meters in length, were ordered with the designation Post4ü – bII / 21.5 and were intended to be used for correspondence. Credé and MAN were the suppliers. The contract was completed by 1943, and rail mail cars were considered essential to the war effort. Therefore, a series of 25 type Post4ü-bII / 21.6 cars could be completely delivered to the Reichspost by 1944.
The postal administrations of the two German states that emerged after the war, Deutsche Bundespost and Deutsche Post der GDR , took over a share of these wagons. In the later GDR, the rail mail cars were converted into modernization cars in the 1960s .
In addition to the wagons from the former Reichspost , the Deutsche Bundespost also took over former radio beacons , also known as transmitter wagons , which were made from dining wagons of the skirted wagon design that were not completed due to the war, and converted these wagons into mail wagons. From 1949, the Bundespost ordered another series of 57 rail mail cars of the Schürzenwagen-type, which were put into train service as Post4ü-a / 21.6.
Another 250 rail mail wagons, whose main dimensions were similar to the apron wagons , but otherwise largely based on the construction principles of the DB UIC-X wagons , were built from 1950 to 1954 as Post4ü-cII / 21.6. It was the first car in Germany to be equipped with the new Minden-Deutz bogie.
Saloon car
During the time of National Socialism around 50 saloon and special cars were delivered in skirted car design. They were used in the special trains available to Adolf Hitler , Hermann Göring and other leading figures of the Third Reich . The cars were between 23.5 and 26 meters long and weighed between 39 and 78 tons. Due to the heavy weight of the wagon, some of them ran on two three- axle Görlitzer design bogies .
After the Second World War, some of these cars were refurbished by the DB for salon purposes. The bogies were replaced (Minden-Deutz MD 33) and rubber bulges were installed instead of the bellows . The saloon car 10205 became known as the Chancellor's car for Federal Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and can be viewed today in the House of History in Bonn.
Originally, these cars had the usual green DB paint. In the 1970s, it was repainted in TEE -red-beige. In the 1980s, the remaining six cars were presented in the Orient red and white IC product color . Nine cars are still there today.
Some of these cars can be seen in the DB Museum Koblenz , branch of the Transport Museum Nuremberg and the German Steam Locomotive Museum in Neuenmarkt - Wirsberg . Other saloon cars from the Third Reich were converted into measuring cars and company cars.
The observation car used in the "Blauer Enzian" express train , the so-called pulpit car , does not come from Adolf Hitler's special train, but was converted by the DB from a skirted car for the "Henschel-Wegmann counter train".
The driver observation car Bln 10 828 was first used for the American High Commissioner in Austria after the Second World War . After being returned to the ÖBB , the car was converted into a superstructure measuring car.
Express train car with aprons
Based on the skirted wagons, an express train variant was also developed. Essentially, these corresponded to the previous design. The car body, however, was made streamlined and had aprons on the side member. The cars had the new Görlitz III type bogies. For the first time, express train wagons of the Reichsbahn were fitted with crossings protected by bellows. This meant that they could optionally be used in express train service, as passengers could now switch from one car to another. The large-scale division of the passenger area, however, was retained, as was the case with the cars of the predecessor types, as were the recessed entry doors at the end of the car. The double doors in the third class were characteristic of the apron express train cars, while the second class had a single revolving door at the end of the car. However, the half-compartment in the middle of the car was omitted.
While some of the cars were in service with the DB until 1984, the vehicles that remained with the DR, like the other DR skirted cars, were converted into modernization cars in the 1960s, with a few exceptions .
The wagons that remained in Austria after the end of the war, like all other pre-war Reichsbahn wagons, were upgraded in the 1960s on the occasion of a modernization with UIC translating windows, rubber bulge transitions and new upholstered seats.
Received wagons
Some skirted wagons and their modifications are now preserved in museums. In addition to the saloon cars, the Nuremberg Transport Museum has several skirted cars in its inventory. In the railway museum Bochum a Schürzenwagen can be visited. The exhibits at the Dresden Transport Museum include a modernization car.
The Passau Railway Friends have two apron wagons in the style of the 1950s . ÖBB apron wagons are owned by Eisenbahnfreunde Zollernbahn . The professional restoration of a skirted wagon is much more difficult than with wagons of the comparable types 35/36 because of the poorer materials (home building materials) caused by the war, so that the serviceable refurbishment is tantamount to a new building. The Passau Railway Friends are currently having one of their apron wagons reconditioned so that it is operational.
After the rail mail cars were taken out of service, the DB had several rail mail cars converted into service cars. The Darmstadt-Kranichstein Railway Museum bought one of these cars and refurbished the exterior. The Ulm Railway Friends bought one of the former radio beacons . As with the DB, this serves as a railway service vehicle. Four other skirted wagons are currently at the Bavarian Railway Museum, one of these cars is a car of the former driver's train and was delivered with the designation SalBegl4ü-42 . There are currently two skirted cars in operation at the Bavarian Railway Museum, an AB4ü-38 and a C4ü-38.
It is currently unlikely that more of the passenger coaches - especially the ones from the Nuremberg Transport Museum - will be refurbished due to the high costs.
literature
- Joachim Deppmeyer: The standard passenger and baggage car of the Deutsche Reichsbahn. Types 1932-1937 , Verlag Dr. Bernhard Abend, Stuttgart 1988, ISBN 3-926243-01-5 .
- Joachim Deppmeyer: Apron passenger carriages - the streamlined wagon era. Part 1: Four-axle standard express train wagons of the Deutsche Reichsbahn, heavy design . In: Märklin Magazin . 5/1996. Modellbahnen-Welt Verlags-GmbH, ISSN 0024-9688 , pp. 58-62.
- Joachim Deppmeyer: Apron passenger carriages - the streamlined wagon era. Part 2: Four-axle rail mail car of the Deutsche Reichspost, heavy design . In: Märklin Magazin . 6/1996. Modellbahnen-Welt Verlags-GmbH, ISSN 0024-9688 , pp. 64-68.
- Joachim Deppmeyer: Apron passenger carriages - the streamlined wagon era. Part 3: MITROPA's four-axle dining and sleeping car, heavy design . In: Märklin Magazin . 1/1997. Modellbahnen-Welt Verlags-GmbH, ISSN 0024-9688 , pp. 69-73.
- Joachim Deppmeyer: Apron passenger carriages - the streamlined wagon era. Part 4: Four-axle experimental D-train cars of the Deutsche Reichsbahn, lightweight design . In: Märklin Magazin . 3/1997. Modellbahnen-Welt Verlags-GmbH, ISSN 0024-9688 , pp. 58-61.
- Sonja Günther: Salon car in the “Third Reich” . Railways and Museums, Volume 23. Ed .: Deutsche Gesellschaft für Eisenbahngeschichte e. V. , Karlsruhe 1979, ISBN 3-921700-27-2 .