When did oceanblue/beige coaches get blue frames?
Hello everyone, I have a question that I hope some of you will be able to answer for me. I'm shopping for some DB oceanblue/beige UIC-X coaches for my mid-Seventies layout, and I see that the models from Fleischmann and Roco have blue frames, while the new ones from MaTrix have black frames like the Pop-Wagen and Era III coaches. So my question is, what is correct for mid-Seventies, blue frames or black? Also, on a more general level, how common would oceanblue/beige coaches have been in 1974-76? I know the livery was introduced in 1974 with the rollout of the BR111, but how quickly would the passenger coach fleet and locos have been converted? TIA Tom

Hi Tom: I asked the same question a while back. I found this photo which should answer yours: This was taken in May of 1975. You can see o/b coaches both with black frames and blue ones, so the answer is both versions were done from the beginning, but the black frame was dropped early on. The rest of this gallery from die Bundesbahnzeit is here: http://www.bundesbahnzeit.de/Galerien/Heidelberg/galerie.htm. It gives a great cross section of mainline equipment right in the timeframe you're interested in. The rest of the site is excellent as well. Jurgen

Jurgen, Great photo! And you're right, it provides a definitive answer to my question. I agree Die Bundesbahnzeit is a great website, and have found some wonderful photos of steam operations in early Era IV there in the past, but frankly I didn't think of looking there to try to resolve this issue. Many thanks! Tom