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The accumulator cars of Class ETA 150 (Class 515 from 1968) were German railbuses used extensively by the Deutsche Bundesbahn (DB) over 40 years. The driving cars were very comfortable to travel in because they were quiet (despite the typical whine of its DC motors), rode well on the rails due to the weight of the batteries and were pollution-free (no smoke or fumes). They ran on both main and branch lines. They were very popular with passengers. The vehicles were nicknamed ''Akkublitz'' (''Battery Lightning''), ''Säurebomber'' (''Battery Acid Bombers''), ''Steckdosen-InterCity'' (''Socket InterCitys''), ''Taschenlampen-Express'' (''Pocket Torch Express'') or ''Biene Maja'' (''Maya the Bee'' - due to its noise when under way). == History == As a result of many years of favourable experience with this type of vehicle (the Prussian state railways had placed accumulator railcars in service as early as 1907 – these were later the Class ETA 178 in the Deutsche Reichsbahn) and evaluation of the results with the Class ETA 176 prototypes, the DB placed 232 Class ETA 150 power cars and 216 of their associated Class ESA 150 driving cars in service between 1953 and 1965. The DB preferred to employ these two-coach sets on relatively level routes. They were rarely used on hilly lines due to the resultant high current consumption and hence limited range. In the main this only affected those vehicles stationed at Wanne-Eickel, and which were used in the Wuppertal area. Its main areas of operation, apart from the Ruhrgebiet, were Schleswig-Holstein, eastern Lower Saxony, eastern Rhineland-Palatinate (in the ''Westerwald'' forest), south Hesse and south Baden. The last few railcars also worked in the area of the Rhine-Ruhr Transport Union (''Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Ruhr'') or ''VRR'' until 1995. Between 1978 and 1988 the railcars also worked from Aachen to Maastricht in the Netherlands. In 1968, under the DB’s renumbering scheme, the power cars became Class 515, and the driving cars Class 815. Compared with the Prussian ''Wittfeld'' accumulator cars, the ETA 150s had an uneven weight distribution − the batteries were located in the middle of the coach body instead of over the bogies, so that in their last few years in service they tended to sag in the middle, which resulted in their nickname of ''Hängebauchschweine'' (''Pot-bellied pigs''). 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「DB Class ETA 150」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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