Writing compartment

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Writing compartment - recreated in the Nuremberg Transport Museum

The writing compartment (also: train secretariat ) was a service facility of the Deutsche Bundesbahn from 1950 to 1982.

prehistory

From 1912 until the outbreak of the First World War , observation cars of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) operated on the Salzburg – Villach – Trieste route in the summer season . They could be used by 1st or 2nd class travelers  for a surcharge . The luxury offered there included a stenographer and typist.

Facility

In 1950, the predecessor of the Rheingold train was given a writing compartment, which was then converted into a compartment in a mixed 3rd class / baggage car . After the class reform , compartments of the new 1st class were reserved for service and set up on an outpatient basis: A desk top was placed under the window on which the mechanical typewriter stood. She was served by a train secretary who took one of the window seats. The user of the service took a seat in another of the seats in the compartment and dictated the document. In the contemporary advertising photos and the role models of the time, only women are shown in the role of train secretary and only men appear as customers.

From 1955 - initially for individual connections and routes of - Zugpostfunk introduced. These were connections of the mobile radio over the A network , later the B network , which had to be switched manually . The train secretary was responsible for the operator on the train. The corresponding recipient was therefore also in the writing compartment. For the train secretary, the train mail radio had priority over the typing service.

history

From 1950, there were writing compartments, initially in a few selected express trains , later in most long-distance trains in the F-Zug , TEE and IC classes . With the change to the summer timetable in 1982, the service of the writing compartment was discontinued on May 22, 1982.

use

Pre-orders for the use of the train secretariats were possible for a period of up to 2½ hours. The toll was the mid-1970s 3 DM installed for every 15 minutes and for smaller typing up to 5 minutes 1 DM. This was raised in the second half of the 1970s to 5 DM / 2 DM. Dictation of telegrams posted on the train was free of charge. The train secretary also had stamps in stock and made sure that the post was handed over to the Deutsche Bundespost at the next stop . The train secretaries knew foreign languages ​​so that they could also take dictations in English and French or translate them. The train secretaries were obliged to maintain secrecy with regard to the correspondence entrusted to them. It was also possible for the customer to sit down behind the typewriter and use it himself.

The actual use of the writing service was not very intensive. The work of the train secretaries as intermediaries for telephone calls predominated. As therefore the trains after two years of transition time to the summer timetable 1982, the shift from operator-assisted call to the pay phone was complete, also completed the last Zugsekretariate.

literature

  • Johannes Kurz (ed.): The German Federal Railroad in words and pictures (special edition for members of the German Federal Railroad). Bonn 1953, p. 57.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Richard Heinersdorff: The kuk privileged railways of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy . Vienna 1975. ISBN 3-217-00571-6 , p. 148.
  2. ↑ Blog on the turntable.
  3. ↑ Hessberger.
  4. ^ Deutsche Bundesbahn: Trains have telephones .
  5. ^ Deutsche Bundesbahn: Kursbuch . Complete edition. Summer 1974, p. 11, no.11.
  6. ^ Deutsche Bundesbahn: Trains have telephones .
  7. ^ Deutsche Bundesbahn: Kursbuch . Complete edition. Summer 1974, p. 11, No. 10.
  8. ^ Deutsche Bundesbahn: Trains have telephones ; Deutsche Bundesbahn: course book . Complete edition. Summer 1974, p. 11, no.11.
  9. ^ Deutsche Bundesbahn: Trains have telephones .
  10. ^ Deutsche Bundesbahn: Kursbuch . Complete edition. Summer 1974, p. 11, no.11.