Trivia: Oldest intercity trains by country

[Watershed]

It's a bit of an arbitrary one. I'm inclined to include it simply because there isn't much (that stops within Belgium) that is more Intercity-like, and since the aim of my list is to include the oldest IC stock operating domestic and international services in each country.

Charleroi-Antwerp is only 55 miles as the crow flies, but those services are genuinely more limited-stop than the stoppers that also run on the respective routes.

 

[Taunton]

For Canada I would imagine it to be the Budd coaches used on The Canadian, constructed from 1954 onwards.

In Canada the oldest are also Budd-built stainless cars used between Quebec and Windsor, where the oldest are from 1947. They were originally from USA railroads, and then Amtrak, and were bought from there in the 1990s. I think the leader is a onetime Seaboard Air Line (a railroad) car initially used on their New York to Florida services.

The big build of stainless cars for the Canadian Pacific transcontinental service, also very much still around, date from some years later, around 1954. They were not built under licence in Canada but actually by Budd in Philadelphia.

Everything inside the bodyshell has been stripped out and replaced more than once. They are still very pleasant and good riding vehicles to ride in.

 

[Beebman]

Going back to Austria where I've now arrived, I've been noting numbers of IC stock which I've entered into Google and I've ended up at a plain simple German language Wikipedia page that lists types of current ÖBB coaches and their ages which is what I wanted in the first place! It confirms that there is no IC stock in service older than 1980. However it also shows 13 ex-DB couchette coaches in service with Nightjet, type Bvcmbz, which were built between 1962 and 1967. I can't find online any recent pictures of those but now I know what to look for I'll keep an eye open in my travels to see if any are still in use.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 15 Jun 2026 ==

Just belatedly realised that Vagonweb has lists of coaches, here’s the link for ÖBB:

https://www.vagonweb.cz/seznamy/OeBB.php

The page shows that those ex-DB couchette cars I mentioned in the post above (type Bvcmbz) have all been sold.