Train on tires
The French Trains sur pneus trains on tires , also Rames sur pneus units on tires or Trains Michelin Michelin trains , in Alsatian German elastics called were three Express units with pneumatic tires coaches who after the Second World War for a short time on the routes Paris-Strasbourg and Paris – Mulhouse – Basel operated.
prehistory
At the end of the 1930s, Michelin railcars with pneumatic tires were very popular. They established quick connections to cities and, thanks to their smooth running, offered a high level of comfort. The success was so great that the vehicles quickly became too small for the volume of traffic. This is why Michelin , the tire manufacturer , suggested in 1939 that the still young SNCF extend the concept of pneumatic rail vehicles to include locomotive- hauled train sets. Light, fast six-car trains were to be created that were to be used in high-quality long-distance connections.
To test the concept , test drives with three motorless Michelin type 23 railcars were carried out near Clermont-Ferrand , the Michelin headquarters . It turned out that the bogies can have a maximum of five axles in order not to impair the cornering too much. Since the load capacity of a pneumatic tire was limited to 1000 kg, the target weight of an empty wagon was set at 15 t, which left 5 t for the payload. However, the implementation of the concept was initially prevented by the Second World War.
After the war, the SNCF ordered three six-car trains in 1947, which were delivered in 1948 and 1949.
technology
The trains differed in construction and manufacturer:
- The first train came from Carel & Fouché and was built at the Aubevoye and Gaillon factories . The car bodies were tubular, self-supporting structures that were joined together by spot welding from 0.4 to 2 mm thick stainless steel sheet . Carel & Fouché was the only company in France that had the license for this process developed by Budd in the USA. This type of vehicle is often referred to as Inox wagon , after the material used, acier inoxydable, which stands for “ stainless steel ”. The empty train weighed 90.5 t.
- The second train was built by CIMT in Bordeaux and was derived from the two- and three-part trains delivered to Nord . The construction consisted of sheets of the aluminum alloy Duralinox . With a curb weight of 85.7 t, this was the lightest composition.
- The third train was built by Brissonneau & Lotz in Creil with the support of the bus manufacturer Chausson . The car bodies were made of high-strength structural steel. With a curb weight of 93.2 t, this was the heaviest of the three trains.
The operationally inseparable units offered 249 places, 176 of them in 2nd class and 73 in 1st class. They were put together as follows:
- 1 half baggage car with 2nd class compartment
- 2 2nd class cars
- 1 dining car
- 1 1st class carriage with bar
- 1 car, 1st class
The car bodies were 23.2 m long and had semi-automatic central couplings. The spring assembly of the clutch consisted of four rubber bearings arranged in a row , which were loaded in the axial direction. Furthermore, shocks in the longitudinal direction were absorbed by side buffers , which consisted of tires that were inflated to 4 bar.
The bogies for all trains were made by Carel & Fouché. They had a frame made of high-strength structural steel and wheels with Michelin tires that were inflated to 9 bar. A tire pressure monitoring system warned the conductor in the baggage compartment with an acoustic collective alarm. He then had to go off the train to find the red signal light in the affected car. The tires were designed for a mileage of 60,000 km, but easily doubled in operation. Each wheel was equipped with a hydraulic drum brake, which was controlled via pressure intensifiers with the compressed air brake commonly used on railways . The same bogies were also used in the SBB's new tires .
The calculation of the train weight of these trains did not follow the general rules of the SNCF. A flat weight of 15 tons per wagon was assumed, i.e. H. for the 6 wagons a total weight of 90 tons. For the necessary pulling force, however, a pulling weight of 300 t was taken into account, which took into account the higher rolling resistance of the tires compared to steel wheels. At 100 km / h, this is twice as large as with a steel wheel and is up to four times as high at lower speeds.
| Type | model series | No | Places |
|---|---|---|---|
| Half baggage cart | BDmyi | 193-195 | 48 |
| 2nd class car | Bmyi | 187-192 | 64 |
| Dining car | WRmyi | 196-198 | 48 |
| 1st class / bar car | ASmyi | 184-186 | 27 |
| 1. Klass cheek | Amyi | 181-183 | 46 |
commitment
After various tests on the Gaillon – Rouen route , the first train was presented at Paris-Est station in October 1948 and tested further until commercial commissioning in January 1949. The second train entered service in June 1949. It enabled commercial operations on the Paris – Strasbourg link. The third train appeared in September of the same year and made it possible to improve the quality on this connection. The trains were pulled by twelve adapted steam locomotives of the 230 K series , which were based in the Strasbourg depot. The locomotives were all rebuilt to run on oil and had a cladding in blue color with aluminum trim to match the car .
The 230 K covered the 502 km from Paris to Strasbourg without changing drivers, which was a European record. The staff was particularly challenged because part of the train route ran over routes that were part of the Alsatian-Lorraine railway network , where, contrary to the French standard, the signals are to the right of the track.
The Michelin trains were very successful, so that the limited space quickly became too small. They were therefore withdrawn from the Paris – Strasbourg route and moved to the Paris – Mulhouse – Basel route, where they replace the TAR railcars . The trains reached a speed of 120 km / h and a cruising speed of 95.3 km / h on the new line.
On October 21, 1952, the third train derailed near Nogent-sur-Marne at the entrance to the Marne Bridge. A repair was no longer worthwhile, so the train was scrapped and scrapped. In 1953, the somewhat too weak 230 K were replaced by the stronger 231 K on the Paris – Troyes section and by the 231 C on the Troyes – Basel section.
At the summer timetable change in June 1956, the trains were shut down due to signs of wear and tear; an overhaul to repair the trains was considered too costly.
Received vehicles
After the pneumatic trains were withdrawn from commercial use, the SNCF continued to use some cars as rail service vehicles . A 1st class end car from the Inox train manufactured by Carel & Fouché was saved from scrapping and was intended for inclusion in the Cité du train railway museum in Mulhouse. In the end, only one bogie was added to the collection because the interior of the car had almost completely disappeared and its reconstruction would have been difficult. The car body stood for a long time near Romilly-sur-Seine next to the tracks of the Paris – Mulhouse railway line, where it could be seen from the passing train, but was no longer there in 2013.
Web links
- From Paris to Strasbourg in the train on pneu. In: Les Actualités Françaises. Institut national de l'audiovisuel (INA), November 11, 1948(French).
- Pierre Bazin: Le train sur pneus. In: Connaissance du rail.
- Les rames Michelin sur la region Est . In: Loco-Revue . No. 102 , February 1952, p. 52-57 ( 1001mags ).
Individual evidence
- ↑ Saarländischer Rundfunk: With the elastic band into the past . In: SR.de . July 7, 2011 ( sr.de [accessed October 26, 2018]).
- ^ De Paris-Est à Strasbourg-ville: la ligne 1. LR Presse, February 23, 2014, accessed on October 26, 2018 (French).
- ↑ a b R. Guignard: Les voitures des CFF montées sur pneumatiques "Michelin", part 1 . In: Schweizerische Bauzeitung . tape 69 , no. 12 , March 24, 1951, p. 157–162 , doi : 10.5169 / seals-58831 .
- ↑ News in brief . In: Railway amateur . No. 7 , 1949, pp. 206 .