Minitrix Passenger Cars

[serotta1972]

Hello,

 

Can someone help me identify these trains or direct me to information about these passenger cars both about the models and prototypes.  Wondering if these cars ran together or if they're from different regions or countries.  They look very similar so I'm thinking they are from the same era or epoch.  I love passenger trains and wanted to get my hands on some European ones and started looking and found these on Ebay in 2-3 car sets.  They fit really nicely in a Kato 7 car case. :)

 

 

Thank you for any information.

 

Junior

[serotta1972]

I have a couple more.

 

[VJM]

Those are Mitropa cars that ran in Germany.  For a while they were a competitor to CIWL running sleeper express cars, and in some cases were actually CIWL cars appropriated by the German DB and repainted.

[railsquid]

They're all (West) German, I can never remember the Epochen but late 50s ~ early mid 70s, could all run together except the last one, which is an older (pre-war?) design with concertina-style corridor connections. No doubt someone with more encyclopedic knowledge will be along shortly ;).

[VJM]

Pretty sure Mitropa is (was) an East German company.

[TheNicofabi]

Pretty sure Mitropa is (was) an East German company.

Wich would contradict the fact that its Mitrop since East Germany wasnt DB but DR...

[railsquid]

Mitropa was originally DRG, post-war it ended up with DR, in West Germany it became the Deutsche Schlafwagen- und Speisewagengesellschaft (DSG) which used the Mitropa brand for quite a while.

[Fenway Park]

The first batch appear older models which are under scale length. The individual cars appear to be scale length models.

[kvp]

Cream red shorties: TEE cars (trans europ express), DB (west germany), for 1st class only express train, ep3

Red shorties: DSG diners, DB, ep3

Blue shorties: DB 1st class cars (one standard with yellow band, one saloon), ep3

 

Blue white: pop color 2nd class, DB, ep4

Green: standard color 2nd class, DB, ep3

Red with thin white: TEE sleeper, DB, ep4

Blue: DB heritage 1st class, ep3

[serotta1972]

Thank you all very much. Wow, the first seven are shorties and not in scale lenght but they sure look good and perfect for smaller layouts. Great information!

[Welshbloke]

Have a look here (click "Galerien" on the menu across the top). Plenty of photos of old DB passenger trains.

 

The Epoch system doesn't entirely cover what was seen in the real world. For example, the green 2nds and blue 1sts were the original colours of the 26.4m express stock, but some lasted a surprising length of time before being repainted. It wouldn't be unrealistic to have the POP blue/grey 2nd running with them.

 

I'm slowly gathering a near mint and boxed set of the original Marklin POP-Wagen, their first plastic bodied stock. So far I have the 1st, the baggage van and the restaurant. In fact I have two of the baggage van as the first turned out to have a broken step, so I repaired that, changed the couplers, then bought an intact example for the collection. The modified example now couples closely with other Epoch III/IV coaches as an Eilzug.

Edited December 23, 2015 by Welshbloke

[kvp]

It's possible to run together ep 3 and 4 cars as they ran together for quite some time during the transition times. Generally the TEE cars ran in uniform colored sets, including tee diners and dome cars. This means you have enough cars to make at least 3 sets, one pure tee, one standard with shorties and one scale lenght with the rest and maybe a borrowed shorter diner. The heritage cars ran until the modernisation, so it's also ok to add them to a set with a single pop color car.

 

The blue 1st and green 2nd cars ran in most trains, together with the red diners. (baggage was also green) My favourite from that era of the DB is the kakadu half diner painted in blue and red. http://www.bahnbilder.de/1024/dieser-kakadu-halbspeisewagen-armh-56-490880.jpg

[serotta1972]

So my hodge podge collection can actually create an actual consist, good to know. I just might continue to peruse through Ebay for more of the standard lenght cars. I really like different colors and the simple elegance of these passenger cars. I actually have 2 of the TEE Sleeper cars. Thanks again for these great information, it's further increasing my interest in these trains.

[serotta1972]

I just added to my German Passenger car collection.  7 Arnold cars and a locomotive for $150 and are all in good condition.

 

 

[kvp]

Mixed TEE/IC set from the transition of ep3 and 4. The other 2 cars are a bit more modern.

[Welshbloke]

I have one of the Arnold dome cars.

 

These were originally painted in blue and cream, and used on the "Rheingold" express service (they were built as a complete new train for this in the '60s). There was an interesting semi-double deck restaurant car too, the kitchen of which was built on two floors in order to free more space for diners. They achieved this by having a lower floor in the kitchen (far closer to the rails than the main floor) and a humped roof to give space for the upper level. They were later painted in red/cream when that was chosen as the standard Trans Europ Express colour scheme.

 

All of them survive, and at least one has been restored to DB red and cream livery for excursion trains.

 

As a rule of thumb, the Epoch 3/TEE stock tends to have the lower body skirts in black, while the Ep.4/InterCity stock has them in the same red as the bodyside stripe.