History
The predecessor of the S-Bahn was the so-called Bezirksschnellverkehr between the cities of Düsseldorf and Essen, which consisted of steam-powered push-pull trains, mainly hauled by Class 78 and Class 65 engines.
The first S-Bahn lines were operated using Silberling cars and Class 141 locomotives, however these were not suited for operations on an urban network and were soon replaced by Class 420 electric multiple units. In the mid-1970s, the Class 420 was decided to be unsuitable for the network as well, mainly due to being uncomfortable and lacking a lavatory, since one could travel rather long distances on the Rhine-Ruhr network, which wasn't the case on the Munich S-Bahn for which the class 420 were originally designed. At first an improved version of the 420, the Class 422, was discussed, but in 1978 the Deutsche Bundesbahn commissioned a batch of coaches from Duewag and MBB, called the x-Wagen (the x-car) after its classification code Bx. In late 1978, the first prototypes (the 2nd class cars of type Bx 794.0 and the cab car Bxf 796.0) were handed over to the DB, the 1st/2nd class cars ABx 791.0 following in early 1979. The prototypes were successful, and so from 1981 to 1994 several series were commissioned, first to be hauled by the Class 111 engines, but after the German reunification the surplus Reichsbahn engines of Class 143 replaced the 111s on the S-Bahn network.
Read more about this topic: Rhine-Ruhr S-Bahn
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“What would we not give for some great poem to read now, which would be in harmony with the scenery,—for if men read aright, methinks they would never read anything but poems. No history nor philosophy can supply their place.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“In history the great moment is, when the savage is just ceasing to be a savage, with all his hairy Pelasgic strength directed on his opening sense of beauty;—and you have Pericles and Phidias,—and not yet passed over into the Corinthian civility. Everything good in nature and in the world is in that moment of transition, when the swarthy juices still flow plentifully from nature, but their astrigency or acridity is got out by ethics and humanity.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Spain is an overflow of sombreness ... a strong and threatening tide of history meets you at the frontier.”
—Wyndham Lewis (1882–1957)