Conversion car
As Umbauwagen , build cars or Rekowagen be railway cars and trams referred that to the construction chassis and other parts of older vehicles were used.
The spectrum ranges from individual vehicles that have been converted accordingly in local workshops to the industrial production of larger series. For the latter, the designation as "Umbauwagen", "Rekowagen" or "Aufbauwagen" was sometimes used as an official name.
tram
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In the case of tram companies, it has been common practice to replace older car bodies with new bodies almost since electric trams began operating. The reason was the often significantly longer service life of chassis and engines compared to the car bodies initially made of wood. However, there were also conversion cars in which the car body was retained and new chassis and motors were installed, such as the U3l type of the Berlin tram. In the case of larger municipal companies such as the BVG , which arose out of various predecessor companies , corresponding modifications were also made to standardize and rationalize the fleet of vehicles.
In the first few years after the Second World War , large numbers of war-damaged vehicles were restored in Germany. Many transport companies took over this on their own, in some cases the reconstruction took place in the vehicle industry. According to the recommendations of the VÖV , many companies in West Germany used standard car bodies, the appearance of which was derived from the war tram car . For these vehicles, the term nationalized building cars one. They were not only produced in the workshops of individual transport companies, but also by large manufacturers such as DUEWAG and Westwaggon . A total of around 270 railcars and 120 trailer cars of the body type were produced.
The originally recommended for the reconstruction of VÖV car body of the car was build for new vehicles, the so-called Association railcars used that were built until 1958, partly also on three-axle chassis. The transition between body and first aid vehicles is fluid, depending on the number of parts used in older vehicles.
Similar vehicles, sometimes referred to as "body type", were also manufactured for some tram companies in the GDR by VVB LOWA and Waggonbau Gotha on the basis of old chassis. Eight railcars went to Karl-Marx-Stadt , five to Dessau , eight to Magdeburg and one to Zwickau .
While the old two-axle vehicles were replaced by bogie- supported large-capacity and articulated wagons in western Germany from the mid-1950s, a larger program was started in the GDR to equip old two-axle vehicles with new car bodies. These reko cars were built at the Reichsbahn repair shop in Berlin-Schöneweide and at Waggonbau Gotha. Outwardly, they were very similar to its new production. The production of Reko wagons has been extended, for example with the Rekowagen TZ 70/1 , since no new bidirectional trams were built in the RGW .
Since the late 1950s, many tram operators have been making further modifications to their vehicles, primarily with the aim of saving personnel. Due to full employment , many West German companies had a shortage of staff, and there were also rising wage costs. In order to reduce the manpower requirements of the tramcars with two-axle railcars and sidecars that were common at the time (a three-car train required four people), various companies had two-axle superstructure railcars converted into articulated cars, either with a semi-mounted end car ( e.g. in Aachen ) or with a floating middle section ( for example in Duisburg ).
With the advent of the low-floor cars , various tram operators, such as those in Mannheim or Nuremberg, had older articulated multiple units converted by using a new low-floor middle section, although the car body remained largely unchanged. The Czech manufacturer Aliance TW is currently producing conversion wagons, albeit with a different starting material and a different result than the Reko trams of the GDR: Aliance TW builds modern low-floor trams from Tatra four-axle vehicles .
railroad
Both the German Federal Railroad (DB) and the Deutsche Reichsbahn (DR) had old compartment cars converted into modern local transport cars in the 1950s and 1960s .
The DB conversion cars had a high barrel-shaped roof and recessed doors. There were three- and four-axle car types. The three-axle vehicles had doors at both ends of the car, and the four-axle vehicles also had doors in the middle.
The DR Reko cars had a relatively low roof arch. Since the middle axle was partially removed during the refurbishment of three-axle compartment wagons and two-axle wagons (for example through wagons with open platforms) were also used as the starting material, there were two- and three-axle Reko wagons with the same new car body. The series cars had a wide, one-piece sliding door at each end of the car. The four-axle Rekowagen had entrances at both ends in the usual arrangement, which were closed by folding doors. Also Reko freight cars were manufactured by the DR.
- Three- and four-axle conversion or reko cars of the DB and the DR
Three-axle conversion car of the DB
Four-axle DB conversion car for the Lippe (museum) state railway
Three-axle reko wagons of the DR
Four-axle reko wagons of the DR
Small railways
Since the chassis of rail vehicles were built much more solidly than the car bodies for a long time, numerous railway companies put new car bodies on old underframes, for example in Austria on the Stubaitalbahn, which is now operated by articulated trams .
See also
Web links
- Wutachtal museum railway car park
- Berlin goes up steam (PDF file; 517 KiB)