Disadvantages of double-decker railway cars Double-decker Russian Railways trains

We continue the previously started topic: Russian Railways rolling stock of the post-Soviet period.

The Soviet Union was provided with passenger cars from various manufacturers: foreign - from Germany, Poland and from its own. The main domestic supplier was the Kalinin Carriage Works, which continued to work in post-Soviet Russia as Tver Carriage Works, becoming the flagship of modern Russian passenger carriage building.
In the nineties, immediately after the destruction of the USSR, the Ministry of Railways of the Russian Federation still made small residual purchases of German Ammendorf cars, but TVZ was already establishing the production of its own compartment cars. If anyone remembers compartment cars with rigid shelves, then these were them, the first swallows, hastily converted from a reserved seat.
We will not dwell on the early products of TVZ; first, let’s count the most delicious ones, the things that today largely determine the appearance of Russian railways.

There is publicly available information on the official TVZ website - Annual reports. The materials are not posted for the entire post-Soviet period of activity, for 2004 - 2014. A report for 2015 is expected soon.

For 2003 - 490 passenger cars, 2004 - 566 units -

The designated models are 61-4441 – a passenger compartment car with seating (with six-seater compartments) and model 61-4444 – a dining car. The cars are designed to transport passengers at speeds of up to 160 km/h. We traveled as part of the high-speed branded passenger train "Burevestnik" -

05/22/2010 Cars of the Burevestnik train Nizhny Novgorod - Moscow.

2005, total 658 passenger cars -

*I won’t completely screen off the signs, just the top. If you are interested in more detailed information, download reports from the website.

Model range for: "Burevestnik", "Nevsky Express" -

St. Petersburg, Kolpino - Sablino section. Oktyabrskaya railway. 06.29.10.

Let me remind you that we are only counting passenger cars. In addition to them, the plant has produced and continues to produce various special products: laboratory cars, track meters and flaw detectors.

There are carriages even for special forces -

Everything inside is safe and comfortable -

A little more effort and it would have been a dining car combined with a sobering station -

Tours for violent drunks: get drunk and you'll be locked up! Don’t ruin the lives of your loved ones, buy tickets for the alcoholic tour train and brew away from home!

2008, 1172 passenger cars -

2013, 458 passenger cars -

Thus, we get 7 720 passenger cars for 12 years -

The first double-decker train appeared in Russia. The double-decker train has already departed on the Moscow-Adler route on November 1.

The passengers of the first flight were journalists and volunteers of the 2014 Sochi Olympics. The time spent by passengers on the new train on the road will be 25 hours 19 minutes - a little over an hour less than on a regular train. In the near future, a train will cover the same distance in just 22 hours.

Among the advantages of the new train, Russian Railways notes a smooth ride, free Wi-Fi, 3 toilets instead of two in the carriage, as well as small savings on tickets. The top bunk in a double-decker train compartment will cost 3,206 rubles versus 4,530 in a regular train, writes pro-goroda.ru

At first glance, it seems that a double-decker train has only advantages. But observant Internet users have already discussed the innovation from all sides and found a number of disadvantages that Russian Railways representatives were silent about. A user with the nickname Alexid1 on the yaplakal.com forum clearly described the shortcomings of a double-decker train.

The first drawback. Service There are 36 seats in a regular compartment carriage. The new two-story building has 64 seats. You will have to wait longer for service because there are no more guides. There are still two of them. And there are 28 more passengers in a double-decker carriage. Even more than in reserved seat carriage, where there are 54 passengers. This means the tea will be brought slower than in a reserved seat. You will also have to wait longer to board the train. And you pay as for an ordinary single-decker compartment car. We are told that there will be more tickets than in regular trains, but this is also not entirely true. No one will drive extra carriages; it’s just that if there are fewer passengers on a certain route, then the number of carriages will be reduced proportionally.

The second disadvantage. Stairs Elderly people and disabled people will be especially grateful to Russian Railways for the need to carry suitcases to the second floor. Even from the first floor there will be a small staircase to get to the exit. Only one carriage in the entire train will be single-decker. And of course, seats in it will be sold out first.

The third drawback. Baggage Speaking of suitcases and bags. The luggage rack above the entrance to the compartment is no longer there. Neither on the first nor on the second floor. It is not clear to 4 passengers where to put large luggage. Also on this shelf, guides usually placed blankets and pillows so as not to occupy the lower shelves. Now they will get in the way.

Disadvantage four. Ventilation I often travel in compartment cars of branded trains. They are all brand new, but the continuous ventilation only works on one trip out of five. Typically, ventilation is turned on in the evening and turned off at night. I'm not talking about conditioning, but about a banal influx fresh air. For a long time, sealed, non-opening windows have been installed in compartments, and when 4 passengers are traveling and the ventilation does not work for several hours in a row, there is simply nothing to breathe. I can’t even imagine how asthmatics and heart patients endure such torture. Russian Railways has been getting away with this gross violation of sanitary standards for many years. In double-decker cars it will be even heavier, because... The volume of the compartment has become significantly smaller due to the lower ceiling level and the lack of space where there was a luggage rack. You might think that the ventilation would work in the newest carriages. I very much doubt this, because even in branded train 01/02 Moscow-Vladivostok, where the newest cars with double toilets at one end of the car are used, the ventilation is not turned on at all for the entire trip! I argued with the conductors many times - they refer to various technical problems. Thus, the risk of literally suffocating with the ventilation turned off increases even more in a double-decker car. Many people are surprised at how tired they feel after traveling on a night train - they wouldn’t have a headache if there was no ventilation all night and the air didn’t meet any sanitary standards!

The fifth drawback. Toilets Look here. A regular compartment car has 36 seats and 2 toilets. This turns out to be 1 toilet for 18 passengers. The double-decker carriage has 64 seats and 3 toilets - 1 toilet for 21 passengers. Toilets will be 15% busier. Not the biggest problem, but in this regard it will become a little worse.

Sixth disadvantage. Tambour and smokers The vestibule on the opposite side of the conductor's compartment was completely removed. And there is nowhere else to smoke. In theory this is great. And the new Russian law prohibits smoking on trains. I myself do not smoke and cannot stand the tobacco smoke that penetrates into the corridor from the vestibule in ordinary carriages. But the reality in Russia is that many selfish smokers will still want to smoke and will do it in the toilets. And everyone will be forced to be poisoned by tobacco smoke when visiting toilets. And in the vestibule where the carriage enters, the conductors do not allow smoking - they often go there themselves and carry out all sorts of maintenance on the carriage systems.

Disadvantage seventh. Risk of injury Once again about stairs. Unlike Europe, our railway tracks are not so ideally laid out and the carriages are not so thought out in terms of suspension comfort and the carriages sway quite a lot while moving. The risk of injury when going down the stairs when you are going to the toilet is very high. Or if you need to bring hot tea or boiling water. And the second floor will be pumped harder.

On February 1, a new double-decker train was launched; it will run every day on the route “St. Petersburg - Moscow” and in the opposite direction.

The train will depart at 22:50 and arrive at 6:47. Travel time is about 8 hours.

Ticket prices will be floating, as in air travel: the fewer tickets left, the more expensive they are. The minimum cost is 1,299 rubles, at this price approximately 200 seats will be sold, then about 300 seats at 1,699 rubles - and so on in increasing order. The most expensive, last ticket will cost 3,299 rubles.

The train has 13 passenger cars and a dining car. There are only “coupes” here - there will be no reserved seat or SV. Each carriage has 64 seats, which is twice as many as a single-deck carriage.

By the way, double-decker cars are made in Russia, at the Tver Carriage Plant.

The conductor's service room - here is the car control panel, a very interesting thing.

Like on an airplane: control of the carriage's power system, climate control, administration of the magnetic access system in the compartment (okay, the latter is not present on the airplane).

Video surveillance of the carriage.

All compartments are opened with a magnetic key.

Here, in fact, is the compartment itself, this is the second floor.

Individual lighting, 220 V socket.

The carriage has a radio and air conditioning system. The radio volume can be adjusted.

First floor compartment.

The bathroom is like on an airplane.

The composition includes a staff car, there are only 50 seats, but there are compartments for disabled people and their accompanying people. It costs the same as a regular coupe, but beneficiaries ride for free.

Pictograms are duplicated for the visually impaired.

There is a specially equipped bathroom for disabled people.

There is a bar and it is separate from the dining car.

This is a separate topic. Today, on trains, dishes no worse than those in a restaurant are available; a huge room on the first floor of the dining car has been equipped for this purpose. And all the food is sent to the dining room by elevator, which can be seen in this photo

And here is the hall itself (or, more precisely, only half of the hall is shown in the photo).

This is how food and food are delivered to the second floor.

I couldn't help but look at the prices on the menu.

Gradually, such cars will replace reserved seats on most routes. long distance. This will happen no earlier than 2020.

But Russian Railways is silent about something. New carriages are fraught with many problems. Read more under the cut.

1. Service.

There are 36 seats in a regular compartment carriage. The new two-story building has 64 seats.

You will have to wait longer for service because there are no more guides. There are still two of them. And there are 28 more passengers in a double-decker carriage. Even more than in a reserved seat carriage with 54 passengers. This means the tea will be brought slower than in a reserved seat. You will also have to wait longer to board the train. And you pay as for an ordinary single-decker compartment car.

We are told that there will be more tickets than on regular trains, but this is also not entirely true. No one will drive extra carriages; it’s just that if there are fewer passengers on a certain route, then the number of carriages will be reduced proportionally.

2. Stairs

Elderly people and disabled people will be especially grateful to Russian Railways for the need to carry suitcases to the second floor. Even from the first floor there will be a small staircase to get to the exit. Only one carriage in the entire train will be single-decker. And of course, seats in it will be sold out first.

Speaking of suitcases and bags. The luggage rack above the entrance to the compartment is no longer there. Neither on the first nor on the second floor. It is not clear to 4 passengers where to put large luggage. Also on this shelf, guides usually placed blankets and pillows so as not to occupy the lower shelves. Now they will get in the way.

4. Ventilation

I often travel in compartment cars of branded trains. They are all brand new, but the continuous ventilation only works on one trip out of five. Typically, ventilation is turned on in the evening and turned off at night. I'm not talking about air conditioning, but about a banal influx of fresh air. For a long time, sealed, non-opening windows have been installed in compartments, and when 4 passengers are traveling and the ventilation does not work for several hours in a row, there is simply nothing to breathe. I can’t even imagine how asthmatics and heart patients endure such torture. Russian Railways has been getting away with this gross violation of sanitary standards for many years.

In double-decker cars it will be even heavier, because... The volume of the compartment has become significantly smaller due to the lower ceiling level and the lack of space where there was a luggage rack.

You might think that the ventilation would work in the newest carriages. I very much doubt this, since even on the branded train 01/02 Moscow-Vladivostok, which uses the latest cars with double toilets at one end of the car, the ventilation is not turned on at all for the entire trip! I argued with the conductors many times - they refer to various technical problems. Thus, the risk of literally suffocating with the ventilation turned off increases even more in a double-decker car.

Many people are surprised at how tired they feel after traveling on a night train - they wouldn’t have a headache if there was no ventilation all night and the air didn’t meet any sanitary standards!

5. Toilets

Look here. A regular compartment car has 36 seats and 2 toilets. This turns out to be 1 toilet for 18 passengers. The double-decker carriage has 64 seats and 3 toilets - 1 toilet for 21 passengers. Toilets will be 15% busier. Not the biggest problem, but in this regard it will become a little worse.

6. Tambour and smokers

The vestibule on the opposite side of the conductor's compartment was completely removed. And there is nowhere else to smoke. In theory this is great. And the new Russian law prohibits smoking on trains. I myself do not smoke and cannot stand the tobacco smoke that penetrates into the corridor from the vestibule in ordinary carriages.

But the reality in Russia is that many selfish smokers will still want to smoke and will do it in the toilets. And everyone will be forced to be poisoned by tobacco smoke when visiting toilets. And in the vestibule where the carriage enters, the conductors do not allow smoking - they often walk there themselves and carry out all sorts of maintenance on the carriage systems.

7. Risk of injury

Once again about stairs. Unlike Europe, our railway tracks are not so ideally laid out and the carriages are not so thought out in terms of suspension comfort and the carriages sway quite a lot while moving. The risk of injury when going down the stairs when you are going to the toilet is very high. Or if you need to bring hot tea or boiling water. And the second floor will be pumped harder.

Results

Do you think tickets will become cheaper? Nothing like this will most likely happen. Double-decker carriages beneficial only for Russian Railways - they will save money at the expense of your comfort and safety.

Yes, in Europe there are also double-decker trains, but mostly we are talking about ordinary electric trains with seating areas, their ventilation always works, and such cars are often installed on regional cheap trains, such as RE in Germany. But there are many ordinary single-decker trains, of which the vast majority. In the conditions of Russia, when Russian Railways is clearly going to replace all ordinary single-decker cars with double-decker ones, traveling on such trains will have no alternative and will actually be tantamount to torture.

All of the above is my personal opinion.

: https://www.yaplakal.com/forum2/topic633791.html

Double-decker carriages of the Russian railway are part of the Moscow – Adler train. Russian Railways plans to launch trains with double-decker carriages with seats on the routes Moscow - Smolensk and Moscow - Belgorod, Moscow - Saratov. Double-decker cars are manufactured in compartment (64 seats), SV (30 seats), restaurant car, business class seated cars (58 seats), economy class seated cars (104 seats). The two-story dining car has 48 seats in the dining room and six seats in the bar. The length of the double-decker car is almost the same as a regular one (the double-decker version is 70 centimeters longer), and the height of the car has become 5.25 meters.

The main difference between a double-decker compartment and a regular compartment is the absence of upper luggage compartments and the height of the ceiling. Instead of 2.5 meters in a regular carriage, in a double-decker carriage the ceiling height is 2.1 meters. The designers of the double-decker car were given the task of “squeezing” it into the dimensions of a regular car. This is achieved by placing the first floor compartments between wheeled trolleys. Now, in order to get into the compartment on the first floor, passengers will need to go down the stairs and go up to the second floor accordingly. The entrance to the carriage, the conductor's compartment, and the toilets are located on the “middle” level.

On the diagram of a double-decker car the numbers indicate:
1 – vestibule
2 – office space
3 – conductor compartment
4 - ladder of the brake end of the car
5 - passenger compartment of the first floor
6 - ladder not at the brake end of the car
7, 8, 9 – toilets
10 – utility room
11 - corridor of the non-braking end of the car
12 - large corridor of the first floor
13 - corridor of the brake end of the car
14 - large second floor corridor
15 - passenger compartment of the second floor.
The compartment numbers are indicated in red from 1 to 16. In the four-seater coupe version, the seats are arranged (odd seats are lower seats, even seats are upper seats):

First floor:
compartment No. 1 – 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th place,
compartment No. 2 – 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th place,
compartment No. 3 – 9, 10, 11 and 12 places,
compartment No. 4 – 13th, 14th, 15th and 16th places,
compartment No. 5 – 17, 18, 19 and 20 places,
compartment No. 6 – 21, 22, 23 and 24 places,
compartment No. 7 – 25, 26, 27 and 28 places,
compartment No. 8 – 29, 30, 31 and 32 places.

Second floor:
compartment No. 9 – 81st, 82nd, 83rd and 84th place,
compartment No. 10 – 85th, 86th, 87th and 88th place,
compartment No. 11 – 89, 90, 91 and 92 places,
compartment No. 12 – 93rd, 94th, 95th and 96th place,
compartment No. 13 – 97, 98, 99 and 100 places,
compartment No. 14 – 101, 102, 103 and 104 places,
compartment No. 15 – 105, 106, 107 and 108 places,
compartment No. 16 – 109, 110, 111 and 112 places.

Numbering of a double-decker SV class car:
First floor
compartment No. 1 – 1st, 2nd place,
compartment No. 2 – 3rd, 4th place,
compartment No. 3 – 5, 6th place,
compartment No. 4 – 7, 8 place,
compartment No. 5 – 9, 10th place,
compartment No. 6 – 11, 12 place,
compartment No. 7 – 13, 14 place,
compartment No. 8 – 15th, 16th place.

Second floor
compartment No. 9 – 81st, 82nd place,
compartment No. 10 – 83, 84 place,
compartment No. 11 – 85, 86 place,
compartment No. 12 – 87, 88 place,
compartment No. 13 – 89, 90th place,
compartment No. 14 – 91, 92 place,
compartment No. 15 – 93, 94 place,
compartment No. 16 – 95, 96 place.

The double-decker carriage can have 64-seat and 30-seat options. The 64-seater carriage has four-seater compartments, and the 30-seater carriage has two-seater compartments.
Passenger compartments of a double-decker Russian Railways carriage are equipped with: two lower seats and two upper ones (not available in the 30-seat version), in the double compartment there are shelves for small items, under the window table, a ladder and a handrail for climbing onto the upper berths (in the double version - absent ), hooks for clothes and a mirror on the door.

Double-decker carriage with seats

In a double-decker carriage economy class will accommodate 104 chairs. In the business class carriage, there will be 29 luxury seats on each floor. The seats in the business class can be turned towards the direction of the train, or the interlocutors can turn the seats towards each other. All double-decker carriages are equipped with air conditioning and Wi-Fi with Internet.