Goods wagons of welded construction

Goods wagons of welded construction (Güterwagen der geschweißter Bauart) were developed and built by the Deutsche Reichsbahn in Germany from 1933 to about 1945. With the introduction of welding technology in 1933 almost all wagon components were joined by welding and no longer by rivetting. This enabled goods wagons to be designed, for example, for higher speeds or for higher payloads through the use of different types of steel and other engineering changes, but their further development was so heavily influenced by the exigencies of the Second World War that, as early as 1939, the Deutsche Reichsbahn had to temper the design of goods wagons to the new economic circumstances. Because there were overlaps in the change from the Austauschbauart - goods wagons made with interchangeable components - to the new welded classes, the period of the changeover cannot be exactly defined. Several standard goods wagons and their classes are covered in other articles. Goods wagons built during the Second World War that were purely intended for military transport use, are covered under the article on Kriegsbauart - wartime classes. As early as 1921 the development of goods wagons in the German states began to distinguish between those without special features, that represented the standard or norm, and those with certain characteristics i.e. that had a special equipment or properties. Likewise the welded class of goods wagons were divided into: Goods wagons of standard construction (Regelbauart): standard goods wagons without special characteristics Goods wagons of special construction (Sonderbauart): goods wagons with special features Germany's goods wagons of Austauschbauart design, with their interchangeable components, were too expensively designed to continue to be economically manufactured. Consequently, the Deutsche Reichsbahn began to modify existing models or bring out new designs for all goods wagon classes, both from an economic standpoint and with regard to the increasing competition they faced in the transportation market from lorries.