| Type Laabs Container Transport Car
German Federal Railroad (DB) type Laabs double unit gondola car for transporting containers (coupled type Klms 440, former Rmrso 31), leased to Volkswagen, Inc. (VW). Version without a hand brake, with container transport frames and VW transport containers as a load. The cars look as they did around 1971.
Source: www.maerklin.de
Volkswagen and the Deutsche Bundesbahn developed an extremely creative idea when they concluded a contract in 1959 for the rail transport of engines and transmissions between the individual Volkswagen production facilities. Containers did not exist at that time, so standardized containers were initially developed, which were initially transported on short-coupled double units of low side cars (without stanchions) of type R10. From September 1959, engines and transmissions were transported by rail between the VW plants in Wolfsburg and Hanover. Instead of the old R 10 cars, the Rm(r)so 31 type stake cars, which were now constantly being converted, were used from 1965 onwards. Short-coupled units were now created, each consisting of two Klms 440 cars. The cars no longer had the stanchions, side and front walls, handbrakes, brakemans platforms and brakemans cabs. They now only had flat structures with a wooden floor on which the supporting frames for the containers were mounted. The containers themselves were of different heights (1,546, 1,765 or 2,330 mm), but had identical floor dimensions (2,900 x 2,650 mm) because they had to fit into the support frames of the carrying wagons. The transport containers were designed for either 36 engines or 96 transmissions per load. They had guide rails on the inner and middle walls on which small trolleys with the corresponding number of motors or gearboxes were inserted. For loading and unloading, the containers had flaps and doors with central locking on the side walls. In 1966, the container wagons for engine and transmission transport ran on the Hanover - Wolfsburg, Hanover - Emden and Hanover - Ingolstadt routes as well as from Kassel-Baunatal to Emden, Wolfsburg and Ingolstadt, and later also to Brussels. With the start of production of engines and transmissions in the VW Salzgitter plant in 1970 and the incorporation of Audi NSU Auto Union AG into the VW Group, the further destinations were now Salzgitter, Neckarsulm, Stuttgart and Osnabrück (Karman). A special feature that should be mentioned is the treatment of these wagons when maneuvering: they had a “hill ban” and had to be pushed into the exit group bypassing the run-off hill and under no circumstances were they allowed to hit too hard. However, towards the end of the 1960s, sliding wall and sliding roof wagons of various designs were slowly replacing the carrying wagons, as containers could be dispensed with and the racks with motors and gearboxes could be loaded directly. In the 1980s, container transport trolleys were history again. |
