Relative age of passenger equipment worldwide.

A bit of discussion in the Amtrak forum on relative age of American and European passenger cars. viewtopic.php?f=46&t=152679&p=1438746#p1438746" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
So I thought we could have a more on topic discussion here.
What is the oldest equipment you know of in regular passenger service? Or recently retired.
There are the bubble cars discussed here, mark one slam door stock has only just been eliminated on British Rail.
In New Zealand , all equipment is relatively new at the moment. However , just a few years ago , the mainline passenger cars were 1938 carriages, and the Wellington commuter fleet contained post WW2 EMU's.

I understand that British railways now have one of the newest passenger fleets in the world, as so much rolling stock has been replaced in the last 20 years or so.

South African Class 5M2A metro sets were built between 1962 and the mid-'eighties, and they are still in regular and widescale daily service.

Virtually the entire original fleet of British Rail Intercity 125 passenger sets (also known as HST, High Speed Train and Class 43 locomotives) introduced in 1976 are still in regular daily service, although most of them have been re-engined.

Some of the commuter rolling stock in daily usage in Kenya is almost certainly 1950s vintage, although most of the maker's plates are missing and I would have to do some research to get details.

I would rate the British HST 125 as their most successful equipment by far. Some of those sets were on 22 hour daily diagrams, and clocking up a million miles a year . I think they are on their 3rd or 4th diesel engine though.The other successful British carriage I can think of is the MK2 carriage . Introduced early 70's(maybe late 60''s?), some still in service.
Some of the ganz mavag EMU's for Wellington form the early 1980 's are off to South Africa for a 2nd life. Made of corten steel , the feared early rusting never happened.

In Germany the still plenty-used "n-Waggon" (for regional and commuter trains) was built between 1958 and 1980, with around 270 units out of 5000 built still active and forming around 10% of the rolling stock. Most of them were modernized at some point, although it's common that within a train consisting of them you'll find a variety of generations of interiors - the newest from the late 90s.

Anyone know if the French "Corail" carriages are still in use. My impression in the 90's was that they seemed a very sturdy car.

David Benton wrote:Anyone know if the French "Corail" carriages are still in use. My impression in the 90's was that they seemed a very sturdy car.

I have ridden in one in Morocco.

I believe the Corails were the last ones built before the wholesale emphasis on TGVs and are still in service on non-TGV long-distance trains. I think I read recently that they are now undergoing rehabbing. I found them solid and comfortable.

They also still run on pretty much every TER line that doesn't run EMUs or DMUs.

Won't be for much longer though. They've been replacing them with Alstom Coradia Polyvalent (for TER, under the name "Regiolis") and Coradia Liner (for intercity routes), but introduction is relatively slow because platforms at stations need to be rebuilt for them. Out of 1,000 Polyvalents ordered in 2009 to replace previous systems (Corail trains and EMUs/DMUs) so far only about 180 are running. First Coradia Liners have been running since February this year, with wider introduction planned next year.

Algeria has also ordered 17 Coradia Liners to replace its Corail train sets.

kato wrote:They also still run on pretty much every TER line that doesn't run EMUs or DMUs.

Won't be for much longer though. They've been replacing them with Alstom Coradia Polyvalent (for TER, under the name "Regiolis") and Coradia Liner (for intercity routes), but introduction is relatively slow because platforms at stations need to be rebuilt for them. Out of 1,000 Polyvalents ordered in 2009 to replace previous systems (Corail trains and EMUs/DMUs) so far only about 180 are running. First Coradia Liners have been running since February this year, with wider introduction planned next year.

Algeria has also ordered 17 Coradia Liners to replace its Corail train sets.

What changes of platforms do they need?

george matthews wrote:What changes of platforms do they need?

France apparently changed its loading gauge sometime around the early 1970s, and (unlike the other 7500) around 1200-1300 stations on secondary lines built decades before that were never changed to current standard. It's apparently usually just moving things a few cm to get the required clearance; sometimes shave off a few cm from a platform, sometimes moving e.g. a signal box too close to the tracks. Assumed cost is accordingly relatively low, only around 40,000 Euro per station.

I think the actual problem may be the sliding doors that require a few cm clearance to open all the way down to below 38cm height; the trains themselves aren't wider than previous generations used on such routes. DMUs used on such routes and now replaced are e.g. X4750 and X4900. If you look closely at pictures of these the platforms tend to go up to within 2-3 cm of the chassis and the (outside) access steps, with open doors extending out above the platform. Since the platforms are typically low and the doors only open 20-30cm above the platform on these that's not a problem there; on the new DMUs however the sliding doors extend well below the 60cm floor height and conceivably may therefore "scratch" against the platform when opening.

In FS actual passenger stock is relatively modern, oldest ones, I think, should be "piano ribassato" (low floor) and UIC X coaches from the 70s (the two models heavily revamped). But things change very much in private or granted railroads. In various of them there are daily passenger services made with coaches, locomotives or railcars, electric or diesel, that, passing through more or less heavy rebuilds, can be even eighty (yes, 80) years old.
And if we open the field to trams we can see more than one hundred 1928-built tramcars still giving an excellent service in Milan and various other old vehicles in daily service in Turin, Rome and Milan.

Electric railcars E 624.009 and 012 were built in 1935 as third rail driving trailers and during their long life have been transformed and rebuilt n-times.
In the 80s they were bought by La Ferroviaria Italiana, that became then Trasporto Ferroviario Toscano, and are still in daily service.
Normally they sandwich a rake of miscellaneous coaches, old and heavily rebuilt too, and have been immortalized on the line to Stia in 2013. Until the end of May this year (and probably again when schools will reopen) every morning Mo-Fr a Reggio Emilia type interurban tramcar, at the head of up to five trailers, made a journey from Limbiate to Milan.
Trailers were heavily rebuilt in the 60s-70s but the railcars, built in 1928, are nearly to original apart livery and pantographs that substituted poles; they still haven't an handle for the controller, but a wheel to be turned of a quarter each notch.
The image, taken in 1991, shows 89, then scrapped, pulling five trailers in front of the church of the Cassina Amata village.

The two photos by S. Paolini courtesy of Photorail.

Ciao