Corail carriages without air conditioning?

[Transilien]

I was watching an old video filmed at Strasbourg station in 1996. One of the Corail carriages looked like it had window hoppers. Also, the doors are in an unusual place, closer to the edge of the carriage. Is this a regional specced Corail carriage? Does it not have air conditioning unlike most Corail?

 

[Bletchleyite]

It's a bit hard to tell but it looks a bit more like a Eurofima vehicle than a Corail?

This model site seems to imply that SNCF did have some of these:

LS 40351 A9u (Eurofima) der SNCF Ep IV - <? bloginfo('name'); ?>

www.reisezugwagen.eu

LS 40351 A9u (Eurofima) der SNCF Ep IV​

Kategorie: Galerie

1. KLasse A9u (Eurofima) der SNCF, C1-Lackierung, Kasten-Logo, Ep IV

translation: First class A9U Eurofima of SNCF, C1 livery, box logo, not sure what Ep IV is!

I suspect they did have aircon but as they were compartment coaches they had emergency windows in every compartment (only some on the corridor on the other side). Some Italian coaches do.

 

[eastwestdivide]

not sure what Ep IV is!

Probably Epoch 4, model manufacturer code for when it was in use in that livery?

 

[U-Bahnfreund]

The old "Metrorhin" service Strasbourg-Offenbourg and I think also the EC Luxembourg-Basel uses Eurofimas I think

 

[MarcVD]

Eurofima cars - SNCF had 100 of them, all first class - indeed had emergency window openings in case AC breakdowns, in all compartments. But picture posted does not seem to be first class.

Otherwise, the first serie of corail cars second class with guard van (B6D) did not have air conditioning.

 

[SHD]

Looks like a typical Corail coach of the VU subclass (compartment coach) - A10u in first class, B11u in second class. Their doors are located almost at the end, unlike open seating coaches (VTU). They look very similar to Eurofima coaches (VSE in French, Voiture Standard Européenne).

See this picture (in a newer livery) https://www.trains-europe.fr/galerie/piwigo/picture.php?/594/category/127 (*) or this quaint Piko model set https://www.ducasse-modelisme.com/produit/piko-94505-set-de-deux-voitures-corail-sncf-b11u-a10u/

(*) this picture shows a sliding door coach but most VU coaches were built with Mielich articulated doors

 

[Gordon]

I was watching an old video filmed at Strasbourg station in 1996. One of the Corail carriages looked like it had window hoppers. Also, the doors are in an unusual place, closer to the edge of the carriage. Is this a regional specced Corail carriage? Does it not have air conditioning unlike most Corail?

(1) It is a Corail of type VU (compartments - as opposed to Corail Vtu which were open coaches).
(2) the doors close to the end of the carriage are not 'unusual' for some versions of Corail coach
(3) Corail coaches have always been used on both inter city and regional services. Although in later years when the Corail stock was increasingly cascaded to the regions and refurbished/life extended by regional authorities lots of specs have been changed, but the coach pictured is an original 'VU 80' variant.
(4) the VU80 were air conditioned, but on the compartment side of the coach, all windows have a small hopper opening fixed shut, but openable in 'emergency' if the aircon failed - this is what you can see
(5) There were some Corail variants with compartment 1st/baggage and compartment 2nd/baggage configuration which were not airconditioned - I used to always seek these out when travelling in the 80s/90s!

Specifically, the coach in the picture is one of the batch of 200 type 'VU80' which were ordered in 1979-80 and entered service in 1981 - 83; UIC numbering: 50 87 21-74 721 to 920



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