"Line Inspection" Car Set

The single and dual motor classes VT 95 and VT 98 rail busses were the saviors of the branch lines on the newly established German Federal Railroad. The regular production deliveries of the dual motor variation starting in 1955 included 329 VT 98 powered rail cars, 310 VS 98 control cars, and 320 VB 98 intermediate cars. Yet, starting in 1980 the star of the dual motor rail busses also began to sink. Line abandonments and replacement by locomotive-hauled trains caused a large part of these units to disappear on storage tracks by 1987/88. Yet, several were able to start a second career including intermediate car number 998 115 (former VB 98 115), which was retired on July 29, 1982 at the maintenance facility in Hof. By November of 1983, it had been converted at the maintenance facility in Wuppertal-Vohwinkel into station car number 65175 for the maintenance facility in Düsseldorf. It was now supposed to act chiefly as a meeting and line inspection car in the Rhine-Ruhr S-Bahn network. The interior had to be changed accordingly. The bench seats were removed and a large discussion table with appropriate seating was installed as well as other conveniences such as a kitchenette, toilet, carpeting, and drapes. The icing on the cake was the S-Bahn paint scheme at that time in gravel gray / orange. From then on it served as inspection car number 395 (later UIC No. 60 80 99-23 357-9) for the Düsseldorf New Construction Office among other things for inspection of the S-Bahn lines in the Rhine-Ruhr and Rhine-Sieg transport associations. Typically, it was arranged on such runs between two type Kkklms 440 flat cars without brakeman's platforms to provide participants on the run a better overview. It was then usually pulled by class 212 diesel locomotives. It was finally retired in 1999, but shortly after that, it was sold to the Jülich Amateur Railroad Club (EAKJ). In 2002, a private party acquired it and used it with the Cologne-Bonn Railroad Fans (KBEF). It spent the next few years waiting to be overhauled at the maintenance facility in Gerolstein. Then it went to the Siegen locomotive shops for the South Westphalian Railroad Museum (SEM), where it was overhauled and repainted by the firm "Rail Design Bäcker" also located there. Since then it can be admired there especially at the annual Siegen Locomotive Shops Festival.