Bombardier Double-deck Coach
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Adtranz Double-deck Coach (now Bombardier) is a passenger car used by various European railways. The current generation of double-deck coaches can be run at speeds up to 160 km/h (99.4 mph). Depending on their configuration, each coach can seat 100 to 150 passengers.
The ancestry of these coaches can be traced back to double-deck coaches built by Wumag at Görlitz for the Lübeck–Büchen–Hamburg railway in 1935. They were push-pull trains with a cab car that could control the steam locomotive at the other end of the train.
After World War II, these coaches were developed further by VEB Waggonbau Görlitz (formerly Wumag) into double-deck trains of two to five cars sharing bogies. These trainsets were used by Deutsche Reichsbahn of the GDR as well as several other railways of the eastern bloc in large numbers. Starting in 1974, single coaches were built again that were the direct ancestors of today's double-deck coaches. After 1990, VEB Waggonbau Görlitz became part of Deutsche Waggonbau AG (DWA) which was acquired by Bombardier Transportation in 1998.
