Old abandoned trains in Germany that will be familiar to many Spaniards

@ElentirENG ES 12·19·2023 · 23:17 0

The train is an important means of transportation that has been used for several generations by many countries.

A colossal secret military railway facility in the heart of a Chinese mountain
Some abandoned steam locomotives that were waiting for a nuclear war

Some trains became popular because they were the transportation in which many people made short trips. A few days ago, LostintimeNL published a video of abandoned Deutsche Bundesbahn (DB) trains, the German Federal Railway, on disused railway tracks that are being taken over by vegetation. If you live in Spain and talk to your parents or grandparents, surely some of these trains will sound familiar to them, even if they have never been to Germany:

Let's see some screenshots from the video here. The first thing that appears is a DB 701 Series railway service vehicle, a type of train known in Germany as Turmtriebwagen, that is, tower car. They were used for the maintenance of electrified railway lines, which is why they were also known as Oberleitungsrevisionswagen (Catenary Inspection Wagon) and Oberleitungswagen (Catenary Wagon). For those not familiar with railway terms, "catenary" is what the electrical lines on electrified tracks are called, cables that supply energy to the train through pantographs, devices located on the electric locomotives that come into contact with those cables.

Obviously, Turmtriebwagen are very specific vehicles and little known to the general public, not like what we can see below: a Waggonfabrik Uerdingen VT 95. In Germany, this small train was called Schienenbus (railway bus), but in Spain it was popularly known as "Ferrobús". The first to arrive in Spain in 1956, those of the FER 301 series, were manufactured by the German company Waggonfabrik Uerdingen. They mainly served as self-propelled trains on regional trips. The last ones were withdrawn from service by RENFE in 1992.

Another DB 701 Series railway service vehicle, without lights and with broken windows. In this one we can see the panels that it had on its roof to carry out maintenance on the catenaries. This series 701 was built on the basis of the VT 98 railway buses from 1968.

Another Waggonfabrik Uerdingen VT 95, with the characteristic red color that many of these railway buses used by DB had. This one, sadly, is destroyed and without a roof. It must be said that 1,492 VT 95 and VT 98 railway buses were built in Germany. Today, in German museums there are 26 that are still operational and another 11 that are no longer operational.