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Articulated cars are rail vehicles which consist of a number of cars which are semi-permanently attached to each other and share common Jacobs bogies or axles and/or have car elements without axles suspended by the neighbouring car elements. [1] They are much longer than single passenger cars. Because of the difficulty and cost of separating each car from the next, they are operated as a single unit, often called a trainset.
Articulated passenger cars are becoming increasingly common in Europe and the US. The passageways between the car elements are permanently attached. There is a safety benefit claimed that if the train derails, it is less likely to jackknife and modern construction techniques prevent telescoping.
Articulated cars are not, however, a new idea. Many railways in Britain during the first half of the 20th century frequently rebuilt older, shorter cars into articulated sets, and the Great Northern Railway in Britain built suburban car sets new. In the 1930s, a number of streamlined trains built for the London and North Eastern Railway also made use of articulated technology.
Manufacturers such as Gunderson make articulated, low-floor "well" cars, articulated trailer carriers and articulated autoracks. At 34 m (111 ft 6+9⁄16 in) long, Modalohr is also articulated.
Articulated cars have a number of advantages. They save on the total number of wheels and bogies, reducing initial cost, weight, noise, vibration and maintenance expenses. Further, movement between passenger cars is safer and easier than with traditional designs.
Disadvantages primarily relate to lesser operational flexibility. For example, additional cars cannot readily be added to an articulated trainset to accommodate peaks in traffic volume and a mechanical malfunction in one car or power unit can disable an entire trainset. Furthermore, the axle load is higher compared to conventional train sets due to the reduced number of wheels and bogies. [2]
A bogie is a chassis or framework that carries a wheelset, attached to a vehicle—a modular subassembly of wheels and axles. Bogies take various forms in various modes of transport. A bogie may remain normally attached or be quickly detachable ; it may contain a suspension within it, or be solid and in turn be suspended ; it may be mounted on a swivel, as traditionally on a railway carriage or locomotive, additionally jointed and sprung, or held in place by other means.
A locomotive or engine is a rail transport vehicle that provides the motive power for a train. If a locomotive is capable of carrying a payload, it is usually rather referred to as a multiple unit, motor coach, railcar or power car; the use of these self-propelled vehicles is increasingly common for passenger trains, but rare for freight.
A tilting train is a train that has a mechanism enabling increased speed on regular rail tracks. As a train rounds a curve at speed, objects inside the train experience centrifugal force. This can cause packages to slide about or seated passengers to feel squashed by the outboard armrest, and standing passengers to lose their balance. Tilting trains are designed to counteract this by tilting the carriages towards the inside of the curve, thus compensating for the g-force. The train may be constructed such that inertial forces cause the tilting, or it may have a computer-controlled powered mechanism.
A railcar 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, with a driver's cab at one or both ends. Some railway companies, such as the Great Western, termed such vehicles "railmotors".
The Advanced Passenger Train (APT) was a tilting high speed train developed by British Rail during the 1970s and early 1980s, for use on the West Coast Main Line (WCML). The WCML contained many curves, and the APT pioneered the concept of active tilting to address these, a feature that has since been copied on designs around the world. The experimental APT-E achieved a new British railway speed record on 10 August 1975 when it reached 152.3 miles per hour (245.1 km/h), only to be surpassed by the service prototype APT-P at 162.2 miles per hour (261.0 km/h) in December 1979.
A railroad car, railcar, railway wagon, railway carriage, railway truck, railwagon, railcarriage or railtruck, also called a train car, train wagon, train carriage or train truck, is a vehicle used for the carrying of cargo or passengers on a rail transport network. Such cars, when coupled together and hauled by one or more locomotives, form a train. Alternatively, some passenger cars are self-propelled in which case they may be either single railcars or make up multiple units.
Talgo is a Spanish manufacturer of intercity, standard, and high-speed passenger trains. Talgo is an abbreviation of Tren Articulado Ligero Goicoechea Oriol
The AAR wheel arrangement system is a method of classifying locomotive wheel arrangements that was developed by the Association of American Railroads. Essentially a simplification of the European UIC classification, it is widely used in North America to describe diesel and electric locomotives. It is not used for steam locomotives, which use the Whyte notation instead.
A passenger railroad car or passenger car, also called a passenger carriage, passenger coach, or passenger bogie is a railroad car that is designed to carry passengers. The term passenger car can also be associated with a sleeping car, a baggage car, a dining car, railway post office and prisoner transport cars.
Co-Co is the wheel arrangement for diesel and electric locomotives with two six-wheeled bogies with all axles powered, with a separate traction motor per axle. The equivalent UIC classification (Europe) for this arrangement is Co′Co′, or C-C for AAR.
B-B and Bo-Bo are the Association of American Railroads (AAR) and British classifications of wheel arrangement for railway locomotives with four axles in two individual bogies. They are equivalent to the B′B′ and Bo′Bo′ classifications in the UIC system. The arrangement of two, two-axled, bogies is a common wheel arrangement for modern electric and diesel locomotives.
The AGV is a standard gauge, high-speed, electric multiple-unit train designed and built by Alstom.
The UAC TurboTrain was an early high-speed, gas turbine train manufactured by United Aircraft that operated in Canada between 1968 and 1982 and in the United States between 1968 and 1976. It was one of the first gas turbine-powered trains to enter service for passenger traffic, and was also one of the first tilting trains to enter service in North America.
An articulated vehicle is a vehicle which has a permanent or semi-permanent pivot joint in its construction, allowing it to turn more sharply. There are many kinds, from heavy equipment to buses, trams and trains. Steam locomotives were sometimes articulated so the driving wheels could pivot around corners.
Jacobs bogies are a type of rail vehicle bogie commonly found on articulated railcars and tramway vehicles.
For servicing suburban commuter lines, electrified on 25 kV, AC, the Railcar Manufacturing Plant of Riga produced ER9, then ER9P and other modifications of electric trainsets in the 1962-2002 period. The mass production of these trains had begun in 1964.
A wheelset is a pair of railroad vehicle wheels mounted rigidly on an axle such that both wheels rotate in unison. Wheelsets are often mounted in a bogie – a pivoted frame assembly holding at least two wheelsets – at each end of the vehicle. Most modern freight cars and passenger cars have bogies each with two wheelsets, but three wheelsets are used in bogies of freight cars that carry heavy loads, and three-wheelset bogies are under some passenger cars. Four-wheeled goods wagons that were once near-universal in Europe and Great Britain and their colonies have only two wheelsets; in recent decades such vehicles have become less common as trainloads have become heavier.
Zefiro is a family of high-speed passenger trains designed by Bombardier Transportation whose variants have top operating speeds of between 250 km/h (155 mph); 380 km/h (240 mph) and 400 km/h (250 mph).
The SNCF Class Z 50000, also known as the 'Francilian', or 'NAT' is a type of dual-voltage electric multiple unit trainset designed in the 2000s. It is commuter rail system serving Paris and its Île-de-France suburbs on the Transilien network. Departing stations are Gare du Nord, Gare de l'Est and Gare Saint-Lazare.
Trams have been used since the 19th century, and since then, there have been various uses and designs for trams around the world. This article covers the many design types, most notably the articulated, double-decker, drop-centre, low-floor, single ended, double-ended, rubber -tired, and tram-train; and the various uses of trams, both historical and current, most notably cargo trams, a dog car, hearse tram, maintenance trams, a mobile library service, a nursery tram, a restaurant tram, a tourist tram, and as mobile offices.