De Blauwe Engel

When the Blue Angel rolled out of the factory on 15 November 1954, it proved to be a saving grace for the railway sector. This diesel train replaced steam-engine trains on the local railways. Thirty motor coaches and 46 two-car sets of this type of rolling stock were built.

Installing an electrical system along the unprofitable lines in the sparsely populated portions of the Netherlands would be prohibitively expensive. Without diesel trains, these lines would have been in danger of shutting down. The Blue Angel drove mainly on the regional lines in Groningen, Friesland, Overijssel, Gelderland and – for the majority of its later years – Limburg. Its unusual blue colour and winged decoration on the nose earned this series the nickname of ‘Blue Angel’. A well-known problem with the Blue Angel was that it had a tendency to overheat on warm days in the Limburg hills.

On June 2, 1985, NS41 made its final run and was adopted and preserved by Stibans. Eventually, the carriage came to the Railway Museum permanently in 1995, after an overhaul at NS in Tilburg..