PCS Rail in the Field:
Double-Deckers – Double-Deck Carriages.

A double-deck carriage - or short, a double-decker - is a railway carriage with seats on two stacked levels. Compare to single-deck carriages, double-deck carriages have the obvious advantage that a train of equal length has a higher carrying capacity. Inversely, the shorter length of the train permits train service to platforms that would be too short for single-deck trains of equal carrying capacity.

Starting in the late 1970s, VEB Fahrzeugausrüstung Berlin used to provide electrical equipment for double-deck carriages for the railways in East Germany, Poland, and Czechoslovakia. In 1996, Fahrzeugausrüstung Berlin GmbH seized the opportunity of a broad-based tender by Deutsche Bahn AG for the next generation of double-deck carriages to position itself successfully in this line of business. To date, more than 1,500 sets of electrical equipments have been delivered.

The Do Israel project for Israel Railways (IR) represented a particular challenge. Bidding in a 1999 tender, PCS sought to win not just delivery of components, but to win process ownership for the entire electric equipment and diagnostics. The concept proved successful: In 2001, the first vehicles were deployed for active service. Overall, 147 carriages were delivered. The power supply comes from a MU control car fitted with a Diesel generator. Battery chargers and frequency converters are connected to two feed-through lines (3AC 400V) that are installed in each MU set.

On occasion of the 2006 Innotrans trade fair, the Bombardier double-deck carriages were cited for the high level of reliability. And PCS deserves a large share of the credit for the fact that Bombardier double-deck carriages are successfully operating across Europe today.

In early 2009, Bombardier Transportation and Deutsche Bahn signed an outline agreement for the delivery of 800 double-deck carriages. It is the biggest carriage outline agreement that Deutsche Bahn ever negotiated with a single vendor. For the time, these carriages can be used as stand-alone EMUs - with delivery scheduled to begin in 2011. PCS will produce the electric auxiliaries for this new generation of double-deck carriages.