Weitzer railmotor
The railmotors of
The first cars were constructed in 1903, the series since 1906. Reports of their use can be added to a total of 65 sold railmotors and 40 trailers.
Most of these railmotors were built for 1,435 mm (4 ft 8+1⁄2 in)
History
The Hungarian minister of trade, Lajos Láng, started a campaign for the development of self-propelled railcars in order to economize passenger transport on secondary railroads. The producers involved were
Ganz & Cie., though very inventive on other subjects, choose a conventional solution, and in 1904 installed a steam engine instead of the petrol motor. This type of self-propelled railcars became class CmotVIIIa and CmotVIIIb of Hungarian State Railways (MÁV).
Weitzer's Company was more innovative (Johann Weitzer himself had died in 1902). They used the electric transmission, which De Dion-Bouton company had constructed for a small motor car of Pieper Company in Liège, Belgium. In that car De Dion Bouton even had installed a rechargeable electrochemical cell, so that this was the first car with hybrid traction.
Technology
Weitzer Rt. in 1903 transferred the electric transmission to a larger scale, and ordered four-cylinder petrol engines of 50 and of 70 horsepower from De Dion-Bouton. Such a motor was placed in the engine compartment of each railcar, behind the driver's place. By a common axle, it empowered an electric generator. The electricity fed the driving motors of 30 hp each, which were placed underfloor, one at each of the two axles of the car. All of the electric equipment was produced by Siemens-Schuckert.
A battery of electrochemical accumulators (which would have supplied enough energy to move the car) was not installed. But the electric voltage had a level that permitted to feed the propelling motors from a catenary. One of the railways using the cars later took that chance.
Differing from the original plan, all photos of those railmotors in service show some installations above the roofs; on the Hungarian cars there were radiators, on the Romanian cars long exhaust tubes.
The top speed of these railmotors was about 60 to 70 km/h. All had conventional
Types and usage
The greatest number was bought by the ACsEV (Aradi és Csanádi Egyesült Vasutak / Arad & Csanad United Railways) that operated a huge standard gauge network around Arad. In 1910, they had 41 railmotors and 37 trailers. The prototype railmotors had only one closed platform on the rear, a weight of 15 tons and 40 third class passenger seats. The later models were a bit longer, had a central platform, and two classes of seats.
The two railcars bought by Căile Ferate Române (Romanian National Railways) in 1907 had one platform in the end as access for the third class section and a central platform as access for the 1st class compartment.
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Residuals
In 1945, those Weitzer railmotors that still existed in Hungary, became property of Hungarian State Railway MÁV. Six of them were transferred to
General aspects
Produced almost at the same time as the McKeen railmotors, the Weitzer railmotors were an equivalent step in railway development. Some of them ran for more than fifty years with their original engines and transmissions, which is a compliment for their constructors. Their construction was a work of international co-operation. Just therefore they might have been almost forgotten, as their history was lacking of heroic inventors and inappropriate for national monuments.
Literature
- Arnold Heller: Der Automobilmotor im Eisenbahnbetriebe, Leipzig 1906, reprinted by Salzwasserverlag 2011, ISBN 978-3-86444-240-7
References
- ^ "Istoria "Sagetii Verzi" (History of the "Green Arrow", which is the Arad-Podgoria Local Railway". Archived from the original on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2012-12-29.
- ^ Nyíregyházi villamos motorkocsik („Elektric Railcars of Nyíregyháza“, in Hungarian)
External links
- Röll: Enzyklopädie des Eisenbahnwesens → Elektrische Eisenbahnen, there go to VII. Automobile Triebwagen → zu b) Benzin-, Benzol- oder Gasolin-elektrischen Triebwagen
- Raymond S Zeitler, American School (Chicago, Ill.): Self-Contained Railway Motor Cars and Locomotives, section SELF-CONTAINED RAILWAY CARS 57–59
- Röll: Arader und Csanáder Eisenbahnen Vereinigte Aktien-Gesellschaft
- Museal railcars of BHÉV and their history