MiniTrix T15132 B 4er set passenger car Mercury of DB

3 express train coaches model A4ümg-54 (1. Class) and a fast-train dining car type WR4ü-39 (WRUge 152), in the design of the German Federal Railways (DB), for the long-distance express train (F 3) "MERKUR" from Stuttgart via Frankfurt, Cologne to Hamburg. Operating condition at the end of the 1950er.

Large-scale operation
The “Merkur” stood for a myth of the German economic miracle. Soon after the foundation of the German Federal Railways (DB), the forerunners of the West German economic miracle announced themselves. And DB leaders realized early on that business leaders would need a reliable transport network. Hardly had the biggest damage of the Second World War been repaired, they prepared a train network from 1951 onwards, which was supposed to connect the important West German metropolises with fast trains. The so-called F-train network had its roots in the pre-war fast-train network, but it had an important difference: While the German State Railroad Company (DRG) had oriented the network of "flying trains" to Berlin before the Second World War, the main routes of the F-train network were from north to south because of the German border. Fast train connections were established between Hamburg, Bremen, the Rhine-Ruhr area and Cologne, Frankfurt (Main), Stuttgart, Nuremberg, Munich and Basel, which drove back and forth with a few stops in the morning and in the evening. This should allow you to complete an external business appointment in one day. Of course, this did not work for longer distances, such as Hamburg – Munich. In line with the "FD" used before the war, the train was now F-trains, with the F being "Fern". In addition to the regular fare, an F surcharge had to be resolved for the trip. The train runs were given names beginning in 1952/53 : the train pair F 4/3 (Hamburg-Altona – Frankfurt/Main – Hamburg-Altona) was named “Merkur”. With “Blue Enzian”, “Gambrinus”, “Helvetia”, “Senator”, “Roland” and “Domspatz” – to name but a few – the F-trains, as the pride of the young Federal Railways, bore further sonic names. With the name “Merkur” as the “Goddess”, in the Roman religion the god of merchants and thieves, the DB proved its reference to the many commercial cities that were on the way. From summer 1952 the long-distance fast train F 3/4 was operated as "Merkur" between Frankfurt/Main and Hamburg-Altona with stops in Wiesbaden (F 3)/Mainz (F4), Koblenz, Bonn, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Duisburg, Essen, Dortmund, Hamm, Münster, Osnabrück and Bremen. In 1954, his journey even extended from Frankfurt to Stuttgart with a stop in Heidelberg. From summer 1957 the “Merkur” no longer served Dortmund and Hamm, but took the more direct route between Münster and Essen via Haltern and Gelsenkirchen. As a rule, a steam locomotive of the 03.10 series led the train in the section Frankfurt – Hamburg. From summer 1957, the section Stuttgart – Frankfurt was replaced and one of the new V 200 from BW Hamm was now covering Merkur on its entire route. As an F-train of the first hour, the Mercury ran until the end of the F-train era with the summer timetable in 1971, then it was converted into an InterCity.

All wagons with tight coupling geometry. With built-in LED interior lighting. A compartment carriage of the 1. Class is equipped with an LED train-end signal.

This text is machine translated.