The “McTrain,” as it is unofficially known, reportedly got its start in 1992, when the Deutsche Bundesbahn (German Federal Railway) agreed to try outsourcing catering on long-distance routes to McDonald’s. The DB allowed McDonald’s to refit two of its dining cars for the program, installing deep fryers, coffee machines, soda fountains, water heaters, and multiple walk-ins in a 269 square-foot kitchen—still reportedly more than half the car. After an apparent test period in Switzerland (though there is evidence of a parallel program in that country), the DB allowed the McTrain into service in Winter 1993, assigning it to the country-spanning Hamburg-Berchtesgarden line.
After two years of poor reception, the DB ditched the McTrain with the release of its Winter 1995 timetable, bringing to a close this failure of a fast-food experiment.
Today, the McTrain lives on in only photographs that occasionally circulate online.
Source: The Drive
