Before 1918 Germany consisted of more than 30 states – most of them monarchies – when railways came into existence. In the beginning, royalty used first class coaches or first class compartments within public coaches and trains. So
Prince Frederick of Prussia (later German Emperor) travelled in a first class compartment in 1851 when the train derailed in the vicinity of
Gütersloh. But soon most of these kings, grand dukes and princes possessed their own private coaches or trains. In other cases the railway companies provided such coaches and rented them to royalty. Complementary to those private coaches and trains were private reception rooms in the station buildings and in some cases even
private railway stations for the exclusive use of these privileged few. A well-preserved example is
Potsdam Park Sanssouci railway station, a railway station for the use of
Emperor Wilhelm II near his summer palace, the
New Palace in
Potsdam.
Prussia King Frederick William IV of Prussia purchased a set of royal coaches in 1857. They ran on two and three axles and were painted in a chestnut brown. None of these have survived. After 30 years of use they became technically outdated, so in 1889 the new emperor,
Wilhelm II, who was always very interested in engineering and technological developments started to order new coaches. Until the end of his reign in 1918 there were about 30 coaches. These ran on bogies with either two or three axles and were painted in bright blue and
ecru which contrasted significantly with ordinary coaches of the day which usually were painted green, grey or brown; only during
World War I the imperial coaches were they painted green. The private car of the emperor is on display in the
German Museum of Technology,
Berlin, the private car of the empress in the museum of former
Linke-Hofmann-Busch GmbH (today: Alstom Transport Deutschland GmbH) who built the coach.
Other states (foreground) and terrace-car (background), second half of the 1860s; preserved in
Nuremberg Transport Museum The kings of
Saxony,
Wurttemberg and
Bavaria possessed their own trains. Two royal coaches of a most splendid design used by
King Ludwig II of Bavaria are preserved in the
Nuremberg Transport Museum, the king's personal coach as well as a terrace-coach, by half open-air. The
Weimar Republic inherited about 100 of these royal cars, a number far larger than necessary for the president and government. So no new cars were built but some of the old ones remained in use. Others were used in luxury trains or in ordinary services, especially dining cars, or as sleepers. Many of them were also converted to
departmental vehicles. ==Japan==