Voiture État à 2 étages

Voiture État à deux étages

A train made of Voiture État à 2 étages at Pont-Cardinet in 1982.
Type and origin
Power type Passenger car
Builder Entreprises Industrielles Charentaises, Carel et Fouché
Build date 1933 to 1934
Specifications
Gauge 1,435 mm (4 ft 8 12 in)
Fuel type Electric
Performance figures
Maximum speed 120 km/h
Career
Operators Chemin de fer de l'État
Number in class 50
Retired 1984

The Voiture État à deux étages, (French: state double-deck passenger car), were a class of double-deck carriages built for the Chemin de fer de l'État (state railway) of France.

Origin

The suburbs of Paris having experienced a huge expansion at the beginning of the 20th century, the railway companies serving the Île-de-France region were faced with an increasing number of passengers travelling greater distances. The Chemin de Fer de l'Ouest's old carriages were no longer adequate and the Chemin de fer de l'État decided to design a new style of passenger car, capable of carrying passengers on two levels. Their aim was to avoid increasing the length of trains whilst increasing capacity.

The first ten carriages were delivered by Brissonneau et Lotz, now Alstom, in 1933.

Design

The design was revolutionary and without precedent. Although unpowered, they had a driving cab at one end and were pushed and pulled by steam locomotives, such as the 141 TC Ouest and 141 TD Ouest. The cars possessed two vestibules, each with two sets of doors. At both ends of each carriage was a compartment with doors leading to the following carriage for interconnection. The upper deck had rows of five seats whilst the lower deck had four. The cabins allowed the driver to control the steam engine from the driving cab in the opposite end carriage while the locomotive was pushing (using controls actuated by compressed air pipes running through the train). They were thus true driving trailers for steam operation.

Service

The Voiture État à 2 étages were used as unseparable sets of carriages and used for réversibilité, driving the train from the end passenger car and the steam locomotive pushing, on the Réseau Saint-Lazare. They often operated once in the morning, taking commuters to work, and once in the evening, returning them back home. They were also briefly used on the Réseau Montparnasse in shorter sets of six cars.

A total of fifty cars were built, which accommodated the increasing suburban traffic of the beginning of the century. They were supplemented by 380 Bidel passenger cars and 200 EMUs. The last of the class were only withdrawn in 1984, after introduction of the VB2N in 1975.

Carriages in preservation

Several Voiture État à 2 étages have been preserved:

References

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Sunday, March 13, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.