page_title: Verbandsbauart
section_title: A2 – Covered wagon
hierarchical_section_title: Verbandsbauart / Verbandsbauart goods wagons classes / A2 – Covered wagon
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Güterwagen der DRG
context_page_description: The German term Verbandsbauart describes both a type of goods wagon as well as a type of tram.
  In order to standardise the goods wagons classes of the various German state railways, the German State Railway Wagon Association issued regulations. The so-called Verbandsbauart or DWV wagons, named after this association, were built from 1910 until the emergence of the Austauschbauart wagons in 1927. Externally, the Verbandsbauart wagons looked very much like state railway goods wagons, but they were equipped for considerably higher maximum loads of up to 20 tons. A total of 11 classes were defined by norms defined by master engineering drawings. The wagons were built in numbers that today are hardly conceivable. The most important ones were the A2 and A10 Class wagons of which over 100,000 of each type were built. The Om Class A10 wagons were, including wagons of identical construction made by other nations, the most widespread goods wagons of all time and formed the major part of the German goods wagon fleet until the 1950s. Only then did they slowly disappear from the tracks. Many were also modified as part of the German goods wagon reconstruction programme.
context_section_description: The DWV built 120,000 Class A2 goods wagons from 1910 to 1927. These flat-roofed wagons were produced with and without hand brakes and in two variants of loading door and ventilation flap. One had a loading door and ventilation flap on each side; the other variant had two loading doors and two ventilation flaps per side. Later, most of the four-door variants were converted to two-door wagons as the extra doors were deemed superfluous. Vans with two ventilators were mainly used for transporting fruit and vegetables. The new raised brakeman's cab was given a gabled roof with a pointed ridge and handrails were added to the outside of the steps.
  These twin-axle wagons had at a loading volume of 45.7 m³, a payload of 15 tonnes and a carrying capacity of 15.75 tonnes. The wheelbase was uniformly 4,500 mm, the length over buffers was 9,600 mm, it had pressed steel axle boxes and DWV wheelsets. The van had eleven-leaf, 1,100 mm long suspension springs. At one point of the wagon a Kunze-Knorr goods train brake was retrofitted from the mid-1920s. In the late thirties the end panels were reinforced by diagonal braces in order to better stabilize the van body when shunting.
  Some of these vans were later converted to convertible wagons (Fakultativwagen) and equipped with the heating needed for passenger transport. In 1938, they were assigned to the "Karlsruhe" class with the letter marking "Gh" (DB: Gh 10; DR: Gh 04). But passengers were not allowed to travel abroad in these wagons or even board them in border stations.
  As DWV vans they  railway wagon association they bore the class letters "GM" or "NZ". Due to the high number of A2s, the Deutsche Reichsbahn had to create two or this type of wagon two "district classes" (Gattungsbezirke) for them: "Kassel" and "München" ("Munich") as well as the category letter "G".
caption: Class A2 covered wagon
exif: {}