Standard design coaches

Standard design coaches
Hechtcoaches
Bauart 28-37 coaches
Skirted coaches

Standard design coaches

When the Deutsche Reichsbahn Gesellschaft was founded, the company was confronted with a great variety of express train coaches remained from the former state railway era. For example in 1920 there were 91 different types of coaches with 200 different characteristics.

It was clear that they had to create order in the enormous collection of coaches. The DRG worked out a plan to built standard design coaches. These standard design coaches must be made from the same parts as far as this was possible, to keep the maintenance costs low. They appointed a "committee for standard design coaches", who had to coordinate the plans. In the meantime until the first coaches were built and delivered there was need for new passenger coaches. So the DRG decided to built Länderbahn coaches from proved constructions. See also Länderbahn coaches.

Because there were in Germany 36 different coach manufacturers who joined this program, the committee set up a couple of demands where the coach manufacturers had to comply with to be allowed to construct standard design coaches. The following demands were set up:

• There had to be used as many as possible the same materials like metal, rivets, screws, etc. as mentioned on the DIN normsheets. These materials must be used economical and they had to use for each coach the same materials, and if possible the same materials must be used to construct freight wagons.
• Extensive treatment of metal must be avoided, rolled was only allowed when this resulted in weight savings. Parts might be bent only if it is not possible to do it in a different way.

From 1920, in this standard design coach program, thousands of passenger coaches were built. Between these standard design coaches you could distinguish three generations, the coaches here on these pages are divided in these three groups. These three generations are the Hechtcoaches (Pikecoaches), built between 1921 and 1926. The Bauart '28-'37 coaches, built between 1928 and 1937. And the skirted coaches (Schürzenwagens), built between 1938 and 1942. Of course we deal here only with the express train coaches which were used in FD and D trains.

The Hechtcoaches were the first standard design coaches who were built. These coaches were characterised by the coach ends. The ends where the entrance doors were located became smaller towards the end. On the left picture you can see the end of a Hechtcoach, the red lines indicate the line of the coach. You can see that the end of the coach is getting smaller towards the end, and that the middle of the coach is wider than the end. The second picture is a coach of Bauart 1930. These coach, from 1928, had entrance doors who were parallel with the coach sides, but the entrance doors stood 330 mm inwards, as you can see on the picture. The roofs did not stood inwards, so there appeared an overhang above the doors. The third picture is a skirted coach. You can see that the entrance doors are parallel with the coach sides but that the doors did not stood inwards. The coaches were streamlined and on the picture you can see a little of a side skirt where the coaches owed their name to. Also you can see that the coach sides are extended over the corridor. This were typical characteristics of the then modern streamlined rolling stock.

Between these three generations you can distinguish the so called "Bauarten". These Bauarten characterize little modifications between coaches of one generation. The Bauarten were made in a so called "Fahrzeugprogramm". All three generations were made in different Bauarten and in different "Fahrzeugprogramm".

The coaches on this website are divived first to generation and then further to Bauart. By Bauart you can find all the different express train coaches made according to that Bauart. You can find characteristics of the coaches and in which "Fahrzeugprogramm" they were made.