The Baureihe ET 91 was a series of electric multiple units built for the Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft

Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft

The Deutsche Reichsbahn – was the name of the German national railway created from the railways of the individual states of the German Empire following the end of World War I....

 of Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

. The units colloquially known as Gläserner Zug (Glass Train) were equipped with large panorama windows, providing an excellent outside view to the passengers. The vehicles were used for recreational trips only, especially in southern Germany and Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

.

History

Two units with the wheel arrangement

Wheel arrangement

In rail transport, a wheel arrangement is a system of classifying the way in which wheels are distributed beneath a locomotive.. Several notations exist to describe the wheel assemblies of a locomotive by type, position, and connections, with the adopted notations varying by country...

 Bo'2' were built in 1935 by Waggonfabrik Fuchs

Waggonfabrik Fuchs

Waggonfabrik Fuchs was a German coach and wagon builders based in Heidelberg in the state of Baden-Württemberg in southwestern Germany...

 in Heidelberg

Heidelberg

-Early history:Between 600,000 and 200,000 years ago, "Heidelberg Man" died at nearby Mauer. His jaw bone was discovered in 1907; with scientific dating, his remains were determined to be the earliest evidence of human life in Europe. In the 5th century BC, a Celtic fortress of refuge and place of...

 and AEG

AEG

Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft was a German producer of electrical equipment founded in 1883 by Emil Rathenau....

.

ET 91 02 was destroyed on March 9, 1943 in a bomb attack on the Munich

Munich

Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...

 shunting yard

Shunting yard

Shunting yard may refer to:* Classification yard* Shunting yard algorithm* British term for rail yard...

. ET 91 01 survived World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 without major damage and was taken over by the Deutsche Bundesbahn

Deutsche Bundesbahn

The Deutsche Bundesbahn or DB was formed as the state railway of the newly established Federal Republic of Germany on September 7, 1949 as a successor of the Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft '...

 From 1968 on, it was listed as Baureihe 491 in the DB numbering scheme

Locomotive classification of the Deutsche Bundesbahn

Originally, both Deutsche Bundesbahn and Deutsche Reichsbahn continued the classification system of the Deutsche Reichsbahn - see also a short overview of the numbering system of the German railways. When UIC introduced a new classification system that could be processed by the computers of the...

, being assigned the number 491 001-4.

On December 12, 1995 the remaining unit suffered extensive damage in a frontal crash at Garmisch-Partenkirchen

Garmisch-Partenkirchen

Garmisch-Partenkirchen is a mountain resort town in Bavaria, southern Germany. It is the administrative centre of the district of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, in the Oberbayern region, and the district is on the border with Austria...

 and was subsequently taken out of service. The unit has been stationed at the Bahnpark Augsburg in Augsburg

Augsburg

Augsburg is a city in the south-west of Bavaria, Germany. It is a university town and home of the Regierungsbezirk Schwaben and the Bezirk Schwaben. Augsburg is an urban district and home to the institutions of the Landkreis Augsburg. It is, as of 2008, the third-largest city in Bavaria with a...

 since May 2005.

The unit is currently being renovated, however due to economical reasons it will not be put into a usable state again, the power bogie

Bogie

A bogie is a wheeled wagon or trolley. In mechanics terms, a bogie is a chassis or framework carrying wheels, attached to a vehicle. It can be fixed in place, as on a cargo truck, mounted on a swivel, as on a railway carriage/car or locomotive, or sprung as in the suspension of a caterpillar...

having been destroyed in the 1995 accident.

Literature

• Horst Troche: 60 Jahre im Betriebseinsatz: Der "Gläserne Zug". In: Eisenbahn-Kurier. No. 281/30/1996. EK-Verlag GmbH, , pp. 24-29.
• Horst Troche: Die elektrischen Aussichtstriebwagen der Deutschen Bundesbahn ISBN 3-921700-33-7

External links

• http://www.glaesernerzug.de
• http://www.bahnpark-augsburg.de