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BLS Einheitswagen IV

Where is the fastest way to Valais, over the Lötschberg of course. To make travelling as comfortable as possible, BLS now has its standard coaches IV. (Which should actually be called EW II)

Background:
At the beginning of the 1980s, BLS's express train equipment was outdated. In addition to the in-house version of the EW I and the RIC Schlieren wagons from the 1950s, it was also possible to observe rebuilt wagons that were delivered when the railway was opened.

This situation could not be maintained. As with the first generation of standard wagons, BLS decided in favour of the current SBB standard wagon. In typical BLS fashion, the Bernese state railway was not satisfied with what was good enough for the Federal Railways. The BLS coaches were fitted with imitation wood panelling and high-quality seats. For the second class, the SBB seats were modified so that they now had individual headrests and a centre armrest, and the first class received a completely new type of seat. Another upgrade in 1988 was the installation of a telephone cabin with a Natel B in each first-class carriage. These made it possible to make three-minute telephone calls for one franc. Thanks to the widespread installation of telephone booths, every BLS express train offered several options for making telephone calls, whereas the same service was only available on a few SBB trains.

With the new coaches, BLS also adopted the SBB livery, simply matching the BLS corporate colours of sapphire blue and cream.

The new, air-conditioned coaches were very popular and so BLS ordered a further series of EW IVs in the early 1990s. These were again fitted with different seat models, which were modelled on the seats of foreign vehicles such as the TGV Atlantique. Another difference to the first series was the omission of the lossy telephone cabins. However, a basic offer of one telephone cabin per train was still ensured by using the carriages of the first series.

In the 1990s, the carriages were converted for operation in shuttle trains with the SBB Re 460 and the company's own Re 465, similar to the SBB carriages. However, no driving trailers were purchased and SBB IC Bt were hired. Despite the renumbering, these retained the SBB livery and signet.

After the turn of the millennium, BLS decided to withdraw from the intercity transport market and swapped its express train lines for the Bern S-Bahn network. This made the 30 or so standardised IV coaches superfluous and unsuitable for the remaining RegioExpress lines in Simmental, Entlebuch and between Bern and Neuchatel. The coaches were exchanged for the almost 70 standard coaches III, which formed an unpopular splinter class at SBB. These could now be used to form shuttle trains without having to rent driving trailers.


Content:

Options:

• Display of bicycles in the bicycle parking spaces (needs Fahrradständer und Mountainbike by Maverick2002)
• Disable start/end year

A big thank you to:

• UG, who built the vanilla modell which served as a starting point
  
• Maverick2002, who made the bikes for the cargo

Complaints please here[www.transportfever.net].