Dongfeng DMU

The Dongfeng diesel multiple unit, also called the NM1 motor coach, was the first diesel-hydraulic power car and the first double-deck passenger car in China. Qingdao Sifang began work on it in June 1958, finished the design on 18 July and rolled out the first set on 22 September after a build time of just two months. Each set had a motor car at either end, each with two Shanxi-built DV12A V12 diesel engines of 220 kilowatts driving a hydraulic transmission, for 880 kilowatts in all, and four double-deck trailers that held 198 passengers each on hard seats. Its structural speed was 120 kilometres per hour. It entered service in 1960 around Beijing and later ran on the Shanghai to Hangzhou line, but the hydraulic transmission, ventilation and corrosion gave repeated trouble. It was withdrawn on 16 June 1982 and scrapped. It never entered mass production, though its experience fed into the DFH locomotives and later double-deck trains.