#4261· SNCF-rijtuigen VB2N
Voiture de banlieue à 2 niveaux
🇫🇷 France ·built by Alstom Crespin· from 1975
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%2C_double-decker_train_VB2N_1980_(Com_LC1771-004).jpg)
3 photos from Wikimedia Commons · credits & licences
- 1. Gare de Franconville - Le Plessis-Bouchard 05: Clicsouris· CC BY-SA 3.0
- 2. Gare de Lavilletertre (2): Lunon92· CC BY-SA 3.0
- 3. Zurich, Société Nationale des Chemins de fer Français (SNCF), double-decker train VB2N 1980 (Com LC1771-004): ETH-Bibliothek Zürich, Bildarchiv / Fotograf: Lang, Candid / Com_LC1771-004 / CC BY-SA 4.0· CC BY-SA 4.0
what is it?
The voiture de banlieue à 2 niveaux (English: suburban double-deck carriage), shortened to VB 2N, is a type of double-deck passenger railcar used on Transilien, the commuter rail network in the Île-de-France region of France. The cars are unpowered and designed to be paired with an electric locomotive. The coaches, built from 1974, are the successors of the Chemins de Fer de l'État's 1933 built Voiture État à 2 étages.
who runs it
base stats
Bars compare against all trains: 600 km/h (maglev), 1,700 seats; power, weight and number built on a log scale up to 20 MW, 1,000 t and 20,000 built.
fun facts
- First built 51 years ago, in 1975.
- Top speed is 1.1× a car on the Dutch motorway (130 km/h).
- Weighs about as much as 8 African elephants (~6 t each).
- 24.3 m long: about 5 cars parked nose to tail.
carriage / wagon: Unpowered passenger coaches or freight wagons, pulled by a locomotive.
spec sheet
- built
- 1975
- retired
- 2021
- status
- retired
- number built
- 589
- kind
- carriage / wagon
- origin
- 🇫🇷 France
- builders
- Alstom Crespin
- operators
- Société nationale des chemins de fer français
- top speed
- 140 km/h
- power
- —
- gauge
- 1,435 mm standard gauge
- length
- 24.3 m
- weight
- 48 t
- Dutch name
- SNCF-rijtuigen VB2N
From the Wikipedia infobox and Wikidata. Blank means the sources don't say.
Sources: Wikidata Q1765661, Wikipedia: Voiture de banlieue à 2 niveaux (CC BY-SA 4.0).Updated 2026-10-25.