An open coach is a railway passenger coach that does not have compartments or other divisions within it and in which the seats are arranged in one or more open plan areas with a centre

aisle An aisle is, in general, a space for walking with rows of non-walking spaces on both sides. Aisles with seating on both sides can be seen in airplanes, certain types of buildings, such as churches, cathedrals, synagogues, meeting halls, parl ...

. The first open coaches appeared in the first half of the 19th century in the United States. The prototype for their design were the passenger cabins in the river steamers which were then widespread in America. As a result of their origin they were originally known in Europe as American system passenger coaches or American coaches (''Personenwagen amerikanischen Systems'' or ''Amerikanerwagen'') and the idea soon caught on in European railway companies. Initially they were mainly used for rural regional services, whilst urban local trains and local-distance services were dominated by

compartment coach A compartment coach is a railway passenger coach (US: passenger car) divided into separate areas or compartments, with no means of moving between compartments. The compartment coach should not be confused with the corridor coach which also ha ...

es. Several European railways such as the Royal Württemberg State Railways and the

Swiss Northeastern Railway The Swiss Northeastern Railway (''Schweizerische Nordostbahn''; NOB) was an early railway company in Switzerland. It also operated shipping on Lake Constance (''Bodensee'') and Lake Zürich. Until the merger of the Western Swiss Railways into the ...

(''Schweizerische Nordostbahn''), however, preferred open coaches from the start for all types of train. From the beginning of the 20th century open coaches became commonly used in local trains and began to spread to long-distance services too.

High-speed train High-speed rail (HSR) is a type of rail system that runs significantly faster than traditional rail, using an integrated system of specialised rolling stock and dedicated tracks. While there is no single standard that applies worldwide, lines ...

s often consist only of open coaches. The seats in open coaches are either arranged in groups opposite one another or behind one another aeroplane-style, and sometimes seats can be rotated to face the direction of travel. Seats facing one another may be provided with fixed tables, seats arranged one behind the other often have folding trays in the back of the seat in front. Open coaches are almost always equipped with gangways. Originally these were open platforms at the ends of the coach, but from the end of the 19th century the gangways have usually been

vestibuled train A vestibuled train is a passenger train whose cars have enclosed vestibules at their ends, in contrast to the open platforms on early cars. Typically, a vestibule has doorways on either side to allow passenger entry and exit at stations, a door ...

protected with bellows or rubber connectors.

Tramway

On tramways, an open coach is a six- or eight-wheeled driving car or trailer, which has an especially high volumetric capacity. Unlike the earlier, typical platform coaches, open coaches do not have partitions with doors between the entrance area and the actual passenger compartment. These coaches were popular in central Europe in the early 1950s and replaced the old (mainly four-wheeled) platform coaches. Whilst in

West Germany West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 ...

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populou ...

and

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

this type of vehicle was rapidly replaced by articulated trams, in

East Germany East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In t ...

, the Tatra trams were the norm during the 1960s in many cities. The same was true in the former

Eastern Bloc The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc and the Soviet Bloc, was the group of socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America under the influence of the Soviet Union that existed du ...

countries.

References

{{Authority control Passenger rail transport Tram transport Passenger railroad cars

Tramway

See also

References