Central Station >> Düwag classic trams
A colourful trio of classic Düwag cars, I think the most diffuse type of tram in Europe, resting at Bad Dürkheim Betriebsbüro (depot) on the interurban Rhein-Haardtbahn coming from Mannheim. From left, the two six-axle VBL 1017 and RHB 1018, and the terrific twelve-axle VBL 1020. August 4th 2002.
I create these pages to show you some variant of the famous Düwag classic tram, a type of car that I simply love but I don't know lots about it. So, forgive if some of these notes are wrong or ingenuous.
These cars were built in thousands of units for lots of tramway companies in Germany, Austria and some other European country, but also in Alexandria (Egypt) there are Düwag trams. The first four-axle cars were built in 1951 and were called Großraumwagen. Soon articulated versions came out from six up to twelve axles. The artuculated cars are distinguished by the abbreviation GT (Gelenktriebwagen, i.e. articulated motor car) followed by the number of axles: GT6, GT8 and so on. Some car was built by other firms, like Lohner in Wien, under Düwag license. There are five different windscreens, four were introduced in the '50s, the fifth in 1970:
Other things change from city to city: the number, size and potision of doors, lights and pantographs (Alexandria cars have the trolley pole), the width, the lenght of the bodies (Köln series 3000 bodies are longer than others), so, I think that there aren't two identical cars in two different cities. This great number of variants on a single base type renders very interesting Düwag cars to me.
There are trailers, too, both four and six-axle. The last are used only on Rhein-Haardtbahn (Germany) and on U6 light metro in Wien.
Thanks to: Wolfgang Auer (Austria) - Oscar Mannheim - Németh Zoltán Ádám (Hungary) - Martin Rimmele (Germany) - Martin Schmidt (Germany)
© 2003 Ivan Furlanis
Last changes: December 2003