Two clips showing DB Railways Class 218 ‘Rabbit’ (218 155) leaving Frankfurt (Main) Hbf on the 1829 passenger service to Dieburg.

Both clips recorded 20th July 2007.

The DB Class 218 (before 1968 the DB Class V 164) are a class of 4 axle, diesel hydraulic locomotives acquired by the Deutsche Bundesbahn for use on main and secondary lines for both passenger and freight trains.

The class represents the final major revision of the DB V 160 family of locomotives; having the preferred features of the antecedent locomotives, including a hydrodynamic brake, and a single engine providing electrical train heating via a generator as well as tractive power. The class were also the most numerous of the family, providing the backbone of the Deutsche Bundesbahn’s main-line diesel locomotive traction from the 1970s up to the reunification of Germany.

With a power of 2500 to 2800 hp and a top speed of 140 km/h, and the ability to work in multiple with related classes 215, 216, 217 and 218 as well as other classes, and coupled with electric heating and a low speed gear for heavier freight trains the locomotives became the main source of motive power in West Germany on both passenger and freight trains outside electrified sections.

The turn of the second millennium and the preceding few years saw a change from locomotive hauled trains to increasing use of ‘diesel railcars’ (or DMUs, diesel multiple units). This led to a reduction in the demand for these locomotives on passenger services, with many falling out of use, or only finding work pulling freight trains.
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Deutsche Bahn AG (DB AG, DBAG or DB) is the German railway company, a private joint-stock company (AG) with the federal government being its majority shareholder with its headquarters in Berlin. It came into existence in 1994 as the successor to the former state railways of Germany, the Deutsche Bundesbahn of West Germany and the Deutsche Reichsbahn of East Germany. It also gained ownership of former railway assets in West Berlin held by the Verwaltung des ehemaligen Reichsbahnvermögens. Its name means “German Railway” in German.

Deutsche Bahn describes itself as the second-largest transport company in the world, after Deutsche Post AG, and is the largest railway operator and infrastructure owner in Europe. It carries about two billion passengers each year.
At its creation, DBAG took over the abbreviation and logo DB from the West German state railway Deutsche Bundesbahn, although it has since modernised the logo. Erik Spiekermann designed the new corporate font DB type.
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Frankfurt (Main) Hauptbahnhof (German for Frankfurt (Main) main station), often abbreviated as Frankfurt (Main) Hbf and sometimes translated as Frankfurt central station, is the busiest railway station in Frankfurt, Germany. The affix “Main” comes from the city’s full name, Frankfurt am Main (“Frankfurt on the Main”). Because of its location in the middle of Germany and usage as a transport hub for long and short distance travelling, Deutsche Bahn refers to it as the most important station in Germany.
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Frankfurt (officially: Frankfurt am Main) is a metropolis and the largest city of the German federal state of Hesse, and its 746,878 (2017) inhabitants make it the fifth-largest city in Germany. On the River Main (a tributary of the Rhine), it forms a continuous conurbation with the neighbouring city of Offenbach am Main, and its urban area has a population of 2.3 million. The city is at the centre of the larger Rhine-Main Metropolitan Region, which has a population of 5.5 million and is Germany’s second-largest metropolitan region after the Rhine-Ruhr Region. Since the enlargement of the European Union in 2013, the geographic centre of the EU is about 40 km (25 mi) to the east of Frankfurt’s central business district. Like France and Franconia, the city is named after the Franks. Frankfurt is the largest city in the Rhine Franconian dialect area (Franconian dialects), Frankfurt was one of the host cities of the official tournaments of the 1974 and the 2006 FIFA World Cup.

Frankfurt was a city state, the Free City of Frankfurt, for nearly five centuries, and was one of the most important cities of the Holy Roman Empire, as a site of imperial coronations; it lost its sovereignty upon the collapse of the empire in 1806 and then permanently in 1866, when it was annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia. It has been part of the federal state of Hesse since 1945.
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