Dhe sight of a train from TRI Train Rental GmbH may be surprising. Instead of air conditioning, there are windows that slide down, the doors can only be opened by hand with a lever instead of at the push of a button, and there is no WiFi.
The founder and managing director of TRI, Tobias Richter, was a federal railway official in Nuremberg and privately collected historical trains, not model railways, but decommissioned Deutsche Bahn vehicles. That may sound unusual, but according to Richter, anyone who is interested in old trains can collect trains – as long as they have a parking space. Because the cars, in Richter's case passenger cars, are quite easy to get to, for example via Deutsche Bahn's standstill management.
Richter parked his trains in the German Steam Locomotive Museum in Neuenmarkt, Bavaria. The highlight of his collection were the TEE Rheinpfeil cars. This long-distance train was upgraded from the Rheinpfeil to the TEE (Trans-Europ-Express) in 1965 and replaced by the EC (Eurocity) in 1987. In order to preserve the trains he collected, he founded TRI Train Rental GmbH with his son Maximilian Richter in 2013.
They earned money from their first rentals to purchase additional locomotives and wagons. Until the start of the Corona pandemic, TRI rented passenger cars from the former Trans-Europ-Express to AKE-Eisenbahntouristik in Gerolstein, a company that offers high-quality special train trips.
A double-decker car costs 400,000 euros
According to Maximilian Richter, a double-deck car costs around 400,000 euros and a single-deck car costs between 30,000 and 50,000 euros. “When it comes to the costs of a vehicle, you have to keep in mind that the purchase often only accounts for a small part.” Additional and often higher costs have to be taken into account for the refurbishment – which is carried out by partner companies – and the recommissioning.
When the managing directors noticed that more and more local transport providers did not have enough train reserves of their own, they developed their business idea: “The TRI steps in where the actual local rail passenger transport provider can no longer do it – a unique selling point on the transport market,” explains Richter. Due to constantly growing demand, TRI increased its staff and vehicle inventory. According to Richter, almost all well-known local rail passenger transport providers are on the customer list, such as DB Regio, Transdev, Netinera, Abellio, Go-Ahead and Eurobahn.
“Our blue and white trains currently run daily in the Rhineland, Württemberg and Bavaria, most recently from July to September in the S-Bahn replacement service in Stuttgart. But we are also starting to make a name for ourselves in night train traffic; “The European Sleeper from Berlin to Brussels, for example, travels with TRI passenger coaches,” reports Richter. TRI also offers special trips, for example to football games.
According to its own information, the family business owns 14 electric locomotives, including the 110 (E10), 111 and 113 (E10.12) series, and more than 100 passenger cars, including sleeping cars, couchette cars and dining cars; some of them are designed for a speed of 200 kilometers per hour. The next step will be air-conditioned double-decker cars for modern local transport.
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