UIC classification of railway coaches

Railway coaches are classified under an international system developed by the UIC.

In a broader sense the vehicle number displayed on the coach is also part of its classification, because it encodes other technical details such as the top speed or the type of heating system used.

This overview is based on the system used by Deutsche Bahn: The Austrian Railways use different secondary letters for twin- and four-axled coaches.

In addition to secondary letters, SNCF includes superscript characters to indicate the number of compartments or sections within a coach.

(Example = A8tuj) The Swiss Federal Railways currently uses secondary letters for their fleet of Eurofima coaches and to denote special type carriages.