Mirror car
| Mirror car | |
|---|---|
 Railcar 100 with sidecar 298 in December 2010
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| Numbering: | 94–113 (Tw) 297–302 (Bw) |
| Number: | 20 railcars 10 sidecars |
| Manufacturer: | Rastatt wagon factory , BBC / SSW |
| Year of construction (s): | 1929-1941 |
| Retirement: | 1960-1965 |
| Axis formula : | Bo |
| Type : | Two-axle tram railcar |
| Gauge : | 1435 mm ( standard gauge ) |
| Length over coupling: | 10,920 mm |
| Length: | 9,960 mm |
| Height: | 3,410 mm |
| Width: | 2,050 mm |
| Bogie axle base: | 3,300 mm (94–103, 297–306) 3,000 mm (104–113) |
| Empty mass: | 13.1 t (94–103) 13.4 t (104–113) 8.1 t (297–306) |
| Top speed: | 40 km / h |
| Hourly output : | 2 × 47 kW (94–109) 2 × 50 kW (110–113) |
| Power system : | 750 volts direct current |
| Power transmission: | Overhead line |
| Number of traction motors: | two |
| Drive: | DC motor |
| Brake: | Block brake, short circuit brake |
| Control: | Cam travel switch with crank |
| Coupling type: | Trumpet clutch |
| Seats: | 24 |
| Standing room: | 20th |
| Floor height: | 850 mm |
The mirror car is a historical type of car of the Karlsruhe city tram . The name mirror car is derived from the small mirrors built into the window bars, which were typical for this type of vehicle. The vehicles ran from 1929 to 1972 on the Karlsruhe tram.
Emergence
At the end of the 1920s, the tram fleet of the Karlsruhe tram consisted of 93 railcars built between 1899 and 1922 and 91 sidecars built between 1900 and 1926. The tram administration sought to renew its fleet by gradually purchasing new tram cars to replace the cars from the earliest years of construction. Since the residence cars procured from 1913 to 1926 had proven themselves very well, the new vehicles were supposed to adopt their design, but be one meter longer, which increased the number of seats from 20 to 24. The procurement of a total of 20 railcars and 10 trailer cars extended over five delivery series from 1929 to 1941. All of the cars were manufactured by the Rastatt wagon factory , the electrical equipment came from BBC and SSW .
Delivery series
Nos. 94-97, 297-302
The cars were delivered in 1929. In June 1929 the sidecars 297-302 came to their new home in Karlsruhe. They were soon approved for passenger traffic and used behind the predecessors of the mirror car, the residence railcar. Soon afterwards, the Rastatt wagon factory delivered the mirror railcars. The cars were very popular with passengers because they were larger and more comfortable than the other cars that were in service in Karlsruhe at the time. The cars were equipped with roof lights instead of target films, but these were removed after a few years and replaced by target film boxes and line number towers.
Nos. 98-103, 303-306
After the first railcars and sidecars had been delivered, the city council decided to procure a further six motorcars and four sidecars. As with the first series, the sidecars were delivered first. They arrived in October 1929 and the railcars arrived in March 1930. After these two series had been completely delivered, five motor vehicles from the years of construction 1899 and 1900 were decommissioned in 1931. Up to the next mirror car delivery in 1936, nine more motor cars of the same year of construction were decommissioned.
No. 104-106
Another three cars were delivered in May 1936. The factory-installed line number towers with a target film box underneath were different with these cars. In addition, the cars had a wheelbase of 3.0 instead of 3.3 meters as in the previous series. The line number towers gave the mirror car the nickname "Türmleswagen". With the delivery of the three mirror cars in 1936, numerous cars from the first series of trams in Karlsruhe were again withdrawn from scheduled traffic.
No. 107-109
In another small series, three railcars could be procured again in 1936. Instead of the line number towers, the vehicles had combined line and target film sign boxes, otherwise they did not differ from the previous vehicles.
No. 110-113
In 1939 the municipal tram ordered another four railcars from the Rastatt wagon factory, which were delivered in 1941. In contrast to the predecessor vehicles , more powerful engines were installed, which came from the decommissioned baggage cars of the former Karlsruhe local railway and which made it possible to procure vehicles despite the war-related shortage of materials.
Structure and technology
The wagons were designed as two-axle wagons with a fixed chassis. The wheelbase was 3.3 m in the first two series and was reduced to 3 m in the subsequent deliveries to enable better cornering. The mirror wagons had a length of 10.92 m and, in contrast to the residence wagons, were one meter longer. The passenger compartment had five windows each, which were separated by wide window bars. The roof was designed as a lantern roof that was rounded at the front and rear . The interior of the car was equipped with leather-covered, padded longitudinal benches. Oval mirrors were integrated into the wide window bars, which gave the car its name.
In the 1950s, the wooden superstructures of most mirror cars were replaced by steel superstructures, which also changed the external appearance. The number of side windows was increased by one and the wide window bars were omitted.
The railcars each had two central bearing motors of 47 kW each (Tw. 110-113: 50 kW) and cam switches . Lyra pantographs were used to supply power until 1936 , followed by scissor pantographs .
Mission history
The vehicles, which were the most powerfully motorized trams on the Karlsruhe tram at the time of delivery, were initially used on the most heavily used tram line 1 between Durlach and the Rheinhafen (from 1941: Durlach – Knielingen), and later also on line 2 between Schlachthof, Central station and Daxlanden. On line 1 they ran with two- and three-car trains, whereby the mirror car railcars were also hung with residence car sidecars, on line 2 only two-car trains ran.
With the line network reform in 1958, this area of operation changed and the mirror cars could be observed on almost all tram lines. With the delivery of modern open-plan and articulated cars, the mirror cars were increasingly displaced to the less frequented lines and finally withdrawn completely from passenger traffic in 1972. Some mirror cars were then used as work cars, the other vehicles were scrapped, especially all sidecars.
Museum car
Several railcars of the mirror wagons have been preserved and in the 1980s and 1990s they were partly refurbished into operational museum wagons. Since there were no longer any original sidecars, railcars 99 and 101 were converted into sidecars so that two- and three-car museum trains can be driven in proper style. The following cars have been preserved:
| Original number | comment |
|---|---|
| 95 | Museum railcar since 1986, with a steel body |
| 99 | Museum sidecar since 1986, with steel superstructure, today No. 299 |
| 100 | Museum railcar since 1988, with the original body |
| 101 | Museum sidecar since 2000, car body dismantled in its original condition, today No. 298 |
| 102 | since 1986 museum railcar no. 500 of the Essener Verkehrs-AG , with steel body |
| 109 | since 1964 emergency power car, today No. 495, since 2003 parked |
Original mirror railcar in Karlsruhe's Kaiserstraße , 1961
Mirror car with a modernized steel structure and the typical line number tower in downtown Karlsruhe, 1961
Museum railcar 100 with sidecar 298 in the Karlsruhe pedestrian zone, 2000
Essen museum car 500 (right) in the Essen light rail depot
literature
- Wolfram-Christian Geyer, Ulrich Honervogt, Klaus Mäurer, Markus Weineich, The Karlsruhe Mirror Car : Development of a Special Tram Car , Meeting Point Rail Transport Karlsruhe e. V., Karlsruhe 2007, ISBN 978-3-00-022344-0
