Hi folks,
I'm back...
For today, I'll show you some pictures of West-German trams, made by Düwag, and their modifications.
Most of the pictures are made on analogue-material, and my photographic skills in these days (early 90s) weren't so good, so please be patient.
The biggest manufacturer for trams and light-rail cars was DÜWAG, with its two works in Düsseldorf and Uerdingen.
The sad remains of the Düsseldorf-Works can be seen here:
https://www.google.de/maps/@51.2124046, ... a=!3m1!1e3" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
The two big transfer-tables are long gone, and the buildings are occoupied by other firms, or remain derelict.. the modern shed in the right was the last structure that showed remains of its former use, with two track in dual gauge, meter and standard.
But now back to history.
I start with a copy of Düwags advertising:
Dating back to the late 50s, the first picture shows a 4axle, single ended Düwag motor car with trailer,
with the city of Düsseldorf in the background. These cars were the initial model for the following Düwag-Production line,
all further models were built after an ingenious modular construction, where almost all combinations of door, window, platform configurations and sizes, articulations and even carbody length could be built and combinated with ease.
The second picture shows the original design of the Düwag-Bogie. Later they were modified to a more universal design which made narrow- or standard gauge designs more easy.
Now for some examples:
4axle double ended tramcar, build for the "Vestische"-Network. Now undergoing restoration in the BMB-Museum:
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Compare with the picture shown first, almost the same design, but double ended.
"How to build three cars out of two": This train has a very complicated history. The two end-cars were build for the only electric narrow-gauge tramway-line operated by the German Federal Railways. After its closure, the nearly new cars were sold to the Netherlands, where they were regauged to 1067mm and a generator-car was constructed for use on a non electrified line. The doors for the generator-car were taken from the motor-cars, leaving them with single leaf doors. The motor-cars each gave one of their control-cabs for the generator-car, allowing the train being used with two cars.
When the line in the Netherlands was shut down, these unique train was bought by the Zillertalbahn in Austria, again regauged, now 760mm, and was in service until the late 90s. Now it's back in the Netherlands and in service as a museum-piece.
The other popular design was the 6axle,-double end, single articulated, car:
(BMB-Museum)
Using the designs of the 4axle car, a modfication to a 6axle artic was easy.
The following pictures show some of these cars in their last months of use on the BOGESTRA-Network:
Some interior shots, showing unique features, used only on these cars:
The conductors seat was still in place, but unused for almost 20 years.
To avoid troublesome step-contacts, the doors were secured with these unusual "Saloon-doors". The doors were opened by a pushbutton from the outside, and to keep them open you grab the "saloon-door"(with the security-switch inside) as a grip and climb aboard...
When I was visiting the BOGESTRA, I was looking for the only car with all over advertising, so here it is:
One of the oldest cars was converted into a rail-grinder car, using both sections of a standard-car, an old truck of the pre-war railgrinder, and an articulation joint:
And now, not far away, another Düwags were still in service:
In Essen, the EVAG used 8axle-double end-double articulated cars, that had their origin in the standard-6 axle cars, which were lengthened by simply putting a center section in. This modification was easy, and usually done in a few days. Thanks to the modular-construction.
But the system that brought the modification-game to the top was the Austrian city of Innsbruck:
Innsbruck bought a batch of 6axle, double ended single articulated cars from the German city of Hagen, when this system closed.
They also bought 8axle-single ended double articulated cars from Bielefeld.
Innsbruck soon found out that the 8axle cars were too big for the city lines, and the 6 axle cars were too small for the interurban lines.
So, guess what happened? Yes, the big ones were shortened and the short ones were lenghtened.
Ths was also done with no problems.
Here some pics of the STB (Stubaitalbahn), one of the two Interurbans:
Some other manufactors used Düwag-Licenses to build similar cars, one example is shown here:
In the 50s, West Berlin was in desperate need for modernizing its tramway-system. So two motor-trailer sets were bought from DWM in West Berlin, for initial tests.
To make a long, sad story short, the cars were tested successful, but the already permitted funding for a big batch of new trams was redirected into an even bigger funding for new double-deck buses. The two trains were used almost 'til the closure of the West Berlin System in 1967 and were both preserved as museum-pieces.
But... when the museum-collections in the west and the east were brought together after reunification, all "Doublettes" had to be considered, and one of the two trains was sadly scrapped. So only that one shown here ist existing in non operable condition.
So far for now,
some pictures from Lisbon/Portugal in 1994 will follow soon.