I Just Want Your...

ODEG's new double-decker EMUs don't look bad on the outside. Bright colors, but a rather aggressive look compared to Bombardier's products (these days sold as TWINDEXX). On the inside, though, I'm not a fan. They have quite a lot less window area than TWINDEXX products. Actually, they have less window area than even the early predecessors of the TWINDEXX series, which gives them a bit of a claustrophobic feeling.

I find the class number interesting. Apparently the federal rail authority classified them as class 445.1. Class 445.0 was a single double-decker prototype built by DWA (now Bombardier) and Siemens together, i.e. a completely different product in the same market. This isn't without precedent: The two-part Flirt is class 426.1, but the only thing it shares with the 426.0 is that it's an EMU of the same overall size.

This used to make sense back in 1924, when for example all previous Pacific steam locomotives became sub-classes of class 18 (same for all other wheel arrangements), but the way it's done today is basically random and arbitrary. I wonder whether it is sustainable.