LGB 33350 – SOEG Gondola with a Band
The Saxon-Oberlausitz Railroad Company LLC (SOEG) offers so-called music trains on its narrow-gauge lines from Zittau to Oybin and Jonsdorf using the slogan "With Dixieland through the Zittau Mountains." They usually run once a month in good weather during the high season with a Dixieland band playing lively jazz music in a gondola. This type OO band car, car number 97-23-19, was built in 1919 by the Busch Car Company in Bautzen.
Originally, only two-axle...
LGB 33350 – SOEG Gondola with a Band
The Saxon-Oberlausitz Railroad Company LLC (SOEG) offers so-called music trains on its narrow-gauge lines from Zittau to Oybin and Jonsdorf using the slogan "With Dixieland through the Zittau Mountains." They usually run once a month in good weather during the high season with a Dixieland band playing lively jazz music in a gondola. This type OO band car, car number 97-23-19, was built in 1919 by the Busch Car Company in Bautzen.
Originally, only two-axle gondolas were used on the Saxon narrow gauge railways. To increase load capacity, the Saxon State Railways started purchasing cars with trucks in 1899. The type OOw four-axle units now had a load capacity of 10 metric tons. However, all too quickly this type was not enough to meet requirements. In 1913, four-axle gondolas with trucks began to be built as the type OO with 15 metric ton load capacity. Car builders in Werdau, Bautzen, and Görlitz built these cars. By 1922, 342 of these gondolas had been built. In 1938, Linke-Hofmann-Busch (LHB) in Bautzen was alone delivering the last 15 four-axle cars as the type OO. They had an improved frame, a brakeman's platform, modern standard design trucks, and 4 instead of 2 loading doors. However, purchases of this car type ended.
Car number 97-23-19 comes from a series of 142 cars put into service after World War I from 1918 to 1922. In the prototype, the band car is 10,220 mm / 33 feet 6 inches long and 1,926 mm / 76 inches wide. This provides a load surface 9.48 meters / 30 feet 10 inches long and 1.85 meters / 6 feet wide that translates into a floor surface of 17.5 square meters / 188.37 square feet. This square footage allows enough space for a band. The pivot spacing between the Saxon archbar trucks is 6,700 mm / 263-3/4 inches. The 1,050 mm / 41-5/16-inch-high side walls of wooden boards offer safety to the musicians and ensures nothing stands in the way of undisturbed musical enjoyment.
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