SBB K2 vans

[Nick_Burman]

Hello,

 

The K2 vans were once the workhorse of the Swiss railways - the first were built for the pre-SBB private railways and construction went on for a very long time. They were also very long-lived, herein my question, when were these vans finally withdrawn from revenue service?

 

Cheers Nicholas

Edited May 14, 2022 by Nick_Burman

[chb2488]

Hello Nicholas

 

I can‘t give you an exact date for the last withdrawals, but one source states 18 Gklm (K2) by 1994 (down from 374 in 1988 and 1798 wagons in 1978). In the early nineties they could still be found in parcel trains, or in normal goods trains on rare occasions.

 

Best regards

 

Christian

[Nick_Burman]

21 hours ago, chb2488 said:

In the early nineties they could still be found in parcel trains, or in normal goods trains on rare occasions.

 

By then wouldn't these wagons be in use as departmental vehicles? To this day SBB Cargo has E type 2-axle opens in their fleet, however these are departmental vehicles, painted in a rather garish red and blue scheme.

 

Cheers Nicholas

[chb2488]

Good question… any Gklm in departmental use would have been redesignated as X, so would presumably not feature in the numbers I have quoted above. There‘s a video on youtube titled „Zurich HB 1990“ where a single K2 is being shunted at the end of the film.

[Gordonwis]

I would be wary of confusing the K2 and K4 van types. The K4 (Gms) I feel must have lasted longer than the much older design K2 (Gklm)

 

The K2 were famous in the 1970s for being one of the two types that got painted with 'Fur Guter die Bahn' / Por vos marchandises le Rail etc on the doors. But the K2 were the smaller 2 axle vans that must surely have been almost all gone after the 1980s. The K4 were the larger van

[chb2488]

Your feeling is quite correct, the K4 (Gs) survived into the 2000s, while the K2 (Gklm) and K3 (Gms) saw massive withdrawals in the eighties with only very few left in stock by the mid-nineties. The numbers that I gave above are from D. Demicheli, „Schweizer Güterwagen von damals“. The official SBB publications for 1978 and 1989 give similar numbers, with the K3 even falling behind the older K2 in the 1989 census!

[Gordonwis]

On 16/05/2022 at 20:59, chb2488 said:

Good question… any Gklm in departmental use would have been redesignated as X, so would presumably not feature in the numbers I have quoted above. There‘s a video on youtube titled „Zurich HB 1990“ where a single K2 is being shunted at the end of the film.

 

I suspect  the remaining K2 were indeed in departmental use (even if not redesignated in the 'X' series). In the Zurich video the K2 is clearly in departmental use (a clue is the personnel boarding it and the platform behind being rebuilt)

 

Were things renumbered in the X series as readily then as they would be today I wonder?

[chb2488]

I suspect that any van used as a Materialwagen or similar would have needed to be redesignated rather quickly, otherwise the relevant crew could have ended up without their van and their equipment… Maybe I‘ll find more data on their withdrawal some day.

 

https://www.bahnbilder.de/bild/schweiz~gueterwagen~9-gattung-v-x-dienst-und-materialwagen/257261/sbb---dienstwagen-x-40-85.html