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URL to www.maerklin.de

Notes

Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) class RAe 4/8 Churchill Arrow electric double powered rail car. Used as a charter train for excursion and business runs. Fire red basic paint scheme.

The unit looks as it currently does in 2023

Source www.maerklin.de:

The current class RAe 4/8 1021 (Double Red Arrow) acquired its unforgettable fame in 1946, when the train was made available to the former British prime minister at that time for his painting vacation on Lake Geneva. Since then, this train has become known as Churchill Arrow thanks to its runs with Sir Winston Churchill. Churchill visited among others Bern and Zürich, where he was greeted by the cheering population. On September 19, 1946, Churchill gave a visionary speech at the University of Zürich, in which he called for the establishment of a kind of United States of Europe with his key sentence, Let Europe arise. Even before it was put into operation, the double red powered rail car planned for business trips was presented in 1939 at the unforgettable Landi national exhibition in Zürich as road number Re 4/8 301 (starting in 1948 as road number RBe 4/8 651, starting in 1959 as road number RAe 4/8 1021). SLM (mechanical parts), SWS (interiors) as well as the three electrical firms BBC, MFO, and SAAS (all electrical parts) participated in the building of the unit. No technically new territory was attempted in order to produce a reliable unit in as short a construction time as possible. Recourse was had to already familiar parts and construction methods as much as possible from the single-unit Red Arrow recently placed into service. The double powered rail car consists of two equally long cars independent of each other, each with two two-axle trucks, of which the inner one in each case is equipped with one motor each per wheelset. A large part of the electrical equipment and auxiliary systems such as transformers, controls, compressors, and brake equipment was installed in the low hoods. However, the special controls using so-called Wander Transformers always caused problems with longer layovers in the Zürich main workshops responsible for the unit. After 1946, the train was henceforth called Churchill Arrow and continued in use for excursions and special runs in Switzerland until it suffered damage from a fire in 1979 and later was sold for scrap. In 1996, the Mittelthurgau Railroad (MThB) acquired the unit and it was overhauled with newer electrical components. Due to the insolvency of the MThB, the Churchill Arrow ended up back in the hands of the SBB in 2002. Since then, it has been used as an operational component of SBB passenger service. It is the oldest powered rail car on the railroad. It is used around 50 to 70 times a year and it accumulates about 20,000 km / 12,500 miles per year as part of custom charter runs and public adventure trips.

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