Bavarian MBCL

Between 1907 and 1911, the Bavarian State Railways and the Salzburg Railway and Tramway Company (SETG) jointly procured a series of two-axle electric railcars for 1,000 volts DC that were to be used in cross-border traffic. The vehicles were characterized by the fact that they were almost identical in terms of vehicle construction and were mostly manufactured by MAN, but the electrical equipment came from the respective country of the operator.

The carriages were constructed in a manner similar to that seen on typical interurban trams at the time. The car body thus resembled the short, two-axle passenger cars. The differences consisted of the pantograph on the roof, the electrical equipment under the cab floor and the traction motors on both axles. It was also possible to carry trailers of about the same size.

The Bavarian railcars received the electrical part from AEG. The engines had an hourly output of 60 hp each and a continuous output of 50 hp each. In order to save on import duties for this equipment in Austria, only the car bodies were supplied by MAN and the equipment from the Austrian Siemens-Schuckert works was installed into them. Because these engines were more powerful, these vehicles could tow three trailers instead of two. A total of eleven vehicles were built at MAN for Bavaria and ten for Austria, and three more were manufactured at Simmering for SETG.

When the Deutsche Reichsbahn took over the Bavarian cars, they were designated ET 184⁰. From 1938 the section from Berchtesgaden to Hangender Stein was shut down and four years later the rest of the line was switched to alternating current. Most of the vehicles were handed over to the Hohenfurth electric local railway, which is located in what is now the Czech Republic. The remaining three were handed over to the SETG, where they were modernized in 1950 and received, among other things, more powerful motors.