Schapenhok (HSM C 755)

The first coaches built by the railways to transport passengers looked very much like their horse-drawn counterparts. At the end of the 19th century, the coaches took on the shape of a long rectangular box with many doors along the sides to allow access to the seating compartments. The long running board skirting the outside of the coach enabled the conductor to walk from one door to the next. The seating areas can only be accessed from outside the train, as there is no aisle in the coach. The HSM ordered 135 of these passenger coaches at the start of the 20th century. This new generation of coaches was larger than any previously-built carriages. There are 11 compartments with ten seats each, meaning there was room to transport 110 passengers. As a result, these coaches were given the nickname schapenhok – ‘sheep pen’. They were used throughout the Netherlands until the 1950s, when new coaches and trains were introduced to replace the outdated passenger coaches.