Friday, January 21, 2011

Austrian Federal Railways' Railjet

A jet that runs on rails?  No, just one of the ÖBB or Austrian Federal Railways' marketing names for a premier train which runs between Budapest and Vienna and then either to Zurich or Munich.  Two of our directors took one last year on the latter route, and kept one of the airline style refresher towels as a souvenir.  The train has three classes: economy, business and premium. Official presentation website

It isn't the first time that railways have used airline analogies; Queensland Railways did this back in the 1990s with their Brisbane to Rockhampton electric tilting railcar, and in that case even dressed up the driver to look like an airline pilot.

The Railjet train sets consists of seven individual coaches that are permanently coupled with a locomotive at one end: rather than choose electric multiple units such as the TGV or ICE designs, ÖBB opted for push-pull high-speed trains, which could be propelled by its existing fleet of Taurus high speed Siemens Eurosprinter electric locomotives.  Siemens was awarded a contract to build 23 sets of 7 coach trains in 2006; the Siemens design was viewed to be the best as well as the least expensive. In September 2007 Siemens received an additional order for 44 more Railjet trains. 

The train photo in the flatish terrain near Budapest is from Wikimedia.

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