| Three different design German Federal Railroad (DB) InterRegio passenger cars. One type Aim 260.5 passenger car, 1st class, one type Bimz 264.2, passenger car, 2nd class, and one type ARkimbz 262.2 Bistro Café half dining car.
Light gray / distant blue basic paint scheme with pastel blue striping. Train route: IR 2670 from Konstanz to Kassel.
Car sequence numbers 49, 50, and 51. The cars look as they did in 1993.
There was once a railroad called the German Federal Railroad and in 1988 it put a really innovative type of train into service: The completely newly designed Interregio trains were planned to attract not only new customers with an unusual design concept, but also integrate attractive regions and cities outside of the established IC stops into the German long-distance network. The IR trains in their heyday served at least 320 stops (compared to 80 for the IC/ICE trains). Among other things, they ran to the Emsland region, to the Harz region, to Saarland, through the Sauerland region, and through Saxony, to the Allgäu region, and from Hamburg and Kassel via the Black Forest line to Lake Constance and to Konstanz. Beautiful routes, which you could experience on warm days at an open window or enjoy with coffee and cake in the likewise newly designed Bistro Café. These Bord-bistro dining cars were very stylish at that time and provided a perfect excursion atmosphere. Their unusual division of space also provided pleasant contact among the passengers. The Interregio trains with the Bistro-Cafés were planned to link the travel experience and fast transport together without a lot of train transfers. Unfortunately, this remarkable DB era only lasted a bit more than a decade. The IR 2670 train disappeared right after the schedule year 2001/2002. What remains is the memory of beautiful times in railroading and of the quaint Bord-bistro dining cars, still running today redesigned and repainted in the IC trains. |
