The E03, introduced in four pre-production units in 1965, and its 145 sister locomotives, which were built in series from 1970, were already legends during their lifetime. The Deutsche Bundesbahn developed the E03, primarily with Henschel and Krauss-Maffei, to transport light TEE trains at high speed in the flatlands. The high-speed tests for the scheduled transport of passenger trains at 200 km/h began in 1965 with E03 001. The spherical end faces and the elegant TEE paintwork, developed in wind tunnel tests, shaped the image of rapid transit in Germany for more than 30 years. In 1969, the DB changed the requirements profile for the E03 and increased the train weight for the series locomotives to 480 t at 200 km/h and 800 t at 160 km/h. That's why the power of the engines was increased to 7780 kW. Externally, the series locomotives known as BR 103.1 differed significantly from the pre-series by the second fan strip in the side walls and the simplified paintwork without silver trim between the purple and beige areas. Since trains with maximum speeds of over 140 km/h generally had to be manned by two locomotive drivers, the staff on the locomotives of the last series were given a little more space through extended driver's cabs. Pre-production locomotive 103 004 received single-arm pantographs and an umbra gray roof instead of silver in the 1970s. While she initially worked in front of regular trains, the program soon included mainly assignments in measurement and test services, for example in the run-up to the introduction of the ICE. The opening of the IC train system to second class cars in 1979 made the 103 hard workers. Although the high-speed locomotives were now constantly being pushed to the limits of their performance, they still impressed with their great reliability and were indispensable at DB AG until well after the turn of the millennium. The DB Museum keeps several 103s operational for special operations, including 103 113s.
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