Railcar

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A railcar (not to be confused with a railway car) is a self-propelled railway vehicle designed to transport passengers. The term "railcar" is usually used in reference to a train consisting of a single coach (carriage, car), with a driver's cab at one or both ends.

In its simplest form

With some weather protection, including mountable canvas side curtains

An early steam railcar

An early gasoline-engined rail omnibus on the New York Central railroad.

A modern pair with diesel power

ZIM-based railcar on narrow gauge railway in Gayvoron, Ukraine

In its simplest form it may be little more than a motorized version of a railway handcar.

The term is sometimes also used as an alternative name for the small types of multiple unit which consist of more than one coach. The term is used more generally now in Ireland to refer to any diesel multiple unit (DMU).

While early railcars were propelled by steam, gasoline, and diesel, modern railcars are usually propelled by a diesel engine mounted underneath the floor of the coach.

Sometimes when there are enough passengers to justify it, railcars can be joined together. Usually these form multiple units with one driver controlling all engines, however it has previously been the practice for a railcar to tow a carriage or second railcar which does not provide any power. It is not unknown for several railcars to run together each with its own driver (a practice of the County Donegal Railways Joint Committee). The reason for this being that, to keep costs down, small railcars were not always fitted with multiple unit control.

There are also articulated railcars, with bogies under the point between the carriages rather than two pivoting bogies under each carriage (see Jacobs bogie).

Railcars are economic to run for light passenger loads because of their small size, and in many countries are often used to run passenger services on minor railway lines, such as rural railway lines where passenger traffic is sparse, and where the use of a longer train would not be cost effective. A famous example of this in the United States was the Galloping Goose railcars of the Rio Grande Southern Railroad, whose introduction allowed the discontinuance of steam passenger service on the line and prolonged its life considerably.

Railcars have also been employed on premier services. In New Zealand, although railcars were primarily used on regional services, the Blue Streak and Silver Fern railcars were used on the North Island Main Trunk between Wellington and Auckland and offered a higher standard of service than previous carriage trains.

A variation of railcar is a railbus, a very lightweight type of railcar designed for use specifically on little-used railway lines, and as the name suggests share many aspects of their construction with a bus, usually having a bus, or modified bus body, and having four wheels on a fixed base, instead of on bogies.

A UK company currently promoting the rail bus concept is Parry People Movers. Locomotive power is from the energy stored in a flywheel. Prototypes have an on board diesel motor to bring the flywheel up to speed. In practise this could be an electric motor that need only connect to the power supply at stopping points. Alternatively a motor at the stopping points could wind up the flywheel of each car as it stops.

Railbuses were used commonly in countries such as Germany, and a type of railbus known as a Pacer is still commonly used in the United Kingdom. In New Zealand, the unique Wairarapa railcars more closely resembled railbuses and were specially designed to operate over the Rimutaka Incline between Wellington and the Wairarapa region. In Australia, where they were often called Rail Motors, railcars were often used for passenger services on lightly-used lines. In France they are called an Autorail. Once very common there use died out as local lines were closed. However, a new model has been introduced for lesser used lines.

After the cessation of mainline passenger service on BC Rail in Canada, BC Rail started operating a pair of railbuses to some settlements not easily accessible otherwise.

In Russia, Metrowagonmash (Russian: ОАО "Метровагонмаш") of Mytishchi manufactures railbus RA-1 with a Mercedes engine. As of the summer 2006, the Gorky Railroad planned to start using them on the commuter line between Nizhny Novgorod and Bor.^[1]

The term railbus also refers to a dual-mode bus that can run on streets with rubber tires and on tracks with retractable HyRail train wheels.

Railbus is also a term that refers to a bus that replaces or supplements rail services on low-patronage railway lines or a bus that terminates at a railway station (also called a train bus). This process is sometimes called bustitution.