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The Capricorn 3133 and its special livery

The Capricorn 3133 is something special. The train travels through the landscapes of Graubünden in a champagne-coloured livery rather than the RhB’s traditional red. But how did this multiple unit come to be in such a special colour?

Domenica Herzog, Corporate Communications trainee, 08. March 2022

Where the story began

Stadler and its legacy companies have been producing carriages and entire trains in Altenrhein since 1960. Large numbers of carriage superstructures have been manufactured there for the RhB. Someone must have been counting, because in 2020 it was announced that the 500th superstructure would soon be leaving the manufacturers in Altenrhein and making its way to the RhB. Reason enough to come up with something special.

This is where the Weilburger company comes in:

shortly before Christmas 2020, Weilburger, a world-leading manufacturer of high-quality industrial coatings, submitted design proposals for the 500th carriage superstructure for consideration by Stadler and designers Nose AG. The colours proposed were silver, copper and champagne. The jury opted for the latter.

Paint is not necessarily “just” paint, however: the RhB requires it to meet exacting demands such as enduring gloss and colour stability, maximum weather resistance and EN ISO 45545 compliance in terms of fire protection. The finish must not dazzle when the sun shines, and the coating must exhibit ultra high UV resistance, as the RhB’s trains spend much of their time at high altitudes. 

The art of painting

Weilburger’s laboratories spent the winter following the award of the contract developing the paint. The challenges were considerable. The newly created shade had to remain uniformly flawless during and after application – no easy task, given the surface area involved: an entire train. This took a great deal of trial and error, and everything had to be documented. And one more thing: unlike in other industries where robots do the spraying, here the work had to be carried out manually. In contrast to the standard RhB red (a solid-colour, water-dilutable paint that also comes from Weilburger’s labs), the champagne colour is a metallic paint containing tiny particles of aluminium that create a glossy, shimmering effect.

Change of venue

In March 2021, the application technology was transferred from Weilburg in Germany to Switzerland – more precisely, Stadler in Altenrhein – where the paint was applied to test panels as Stadler’s paint shop specialists received training in its application. Three months and countless painting processes later, all the superstructures were coated. After months of hard work, Weilburger’s contribution drew to a close. It was time to start work on the interiors.

December 2021. One year after Weilburger submitted its design proposals, the Capricorn multiple unit in its brand new livery entered service on the RhB network. The colour is unique – only the Rhaetian Railway can lay claim to that shade of champagne.

Rhaetian Railway: Launch of the new Capricorn railway carriage

RhB Director Renato Fasciati (right), Stadler Project Manager Martin Fürer and RhB Project Manager René Keller (left) naming the Capricorn multiple unit “Piz Palü”.

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