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Rail transport is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of land transport, next to road transport. It is used for about 8% of passenger and freight transport globally, thanks to its energy efficiency and potentially high speed.
A train is a series of connected vehicles that run along a railway track and transport people or freight. Trains are typically pulled or pushed by locomotives or railcars, though some are self-propelled, such as multiple units. Passengers and cargo are carried in railroad cars, also known as wagons. Trains are designed to a certain gauge, or distance between rails. Most trains operate on steel tracks with steel wheels, the low friction of which makes them more efficient than other forms of transport.
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.
VR-Group Plc, commonly known as VR, is a government-owned railway company in Finland. VR's most important function is the operation of Finland's passenger rail services with 250 long-distance and 800 commuter rail services every day. With 7,500 employees and net sales of €1,251 million in 2017, VR is one of the most significant operators in the Finnish public transport market area.
Rail transport terms are a form of technical terminology applied to railways. Although many terms are uniform across different nations and companies, they are by no means universal, with differences often originating from parallel development of rail transport systems in different parts of the world, and in the national origins of the engineers and managers who built the inaugural rail infrastructure. An example is the term railroad, used in North America, and railway, generally used in English-speaking countries outside North America and by the International Union of Railways. In English-speaking countries outside the United Kingdom, a mixture of US and UK terms may exist.
Rail transport operations are the day-to-day operations of a railway. A railway has two major components: the infrastructure and the rolling stock
A siding, in rail terminology, is a low-speed track section distinct from a running line or through route such as a main line, branch line, or spur. It may connect to through track or to other sidings at either end. Sidings often have lighter rails, meant for lower speed or less heavy traffic, and few, if any, signals. Sidings connected at both ends to a running line are commonly known as loops; those not so connected may be referred to as single-ended or dead-end sidings, or stubs.
Electro-Motive Corporation produced five 1800 hp B-B experimental passenger train-hauling diesel locomotives in 1935; two company-owned demonstrators, #511 and #512, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's #50, and two units for the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, Diesel Locomotive #1. The twin engine power unit layout and multiple unit control systems developed with the B-B locomotives were soon adopted for other locomotives such as the Burlington Route's Zephyr locomotives built by the Budd Company in 1936 and EMC's own EMD E-units introduced in 1937. The B-B locomotives worked as proof-of-concept demonstrators for diesel power with the service loads of full size trains, breaking out of its niche powering the smaller custom Streamliners.
A flatcar (US) is a piece of rolling stock that consists of an open, flat deck mounted on a pair of trucks (US) or bogies (UK), one at each end containing four or six wheels. Occasionally, flat cars designed to carry extra heavy or extra large loads are mounted on a pair of bogies under each end. The deck of the car can be wood or steel, and the sides of the deck can include pockets for stakes or tie-down points to secure loads. Flatcars designed for carrying machinery have sliding chain assemblies recessed in the deck.
A rail yard, railway yard, railroad yard (US) or simply yard, is a series of tracks in a rail network for storing, sorting, or loading and unloading rail vehicles and locomotives. Yards have many tracks in parallel for keeping rolling stock or unused locomotives stored off the main line, so that they do not obstruct the flow of traffic. Cars or wagons are moved around by specially designed yard switcher locomotives (US) or shunter locomotives (UK), a type of locomotive. Cars or wagons in a yard may be sorted by numerous categories, including railway company, loaded or unloaded, destination, car type, or whether they need repairs. Yards are normally built where there is a need to store rail vehicles while they are not being loaded or unloaded, or are waiting to be assembled into trains. Large yards may have a tower to control operations.
A train ferry is a ship (ferry) designed to carry railway vehicles. Typically, one level of the ship is fitted with railway tracks, and the vessel has a door at the front and/or rear to give access to the wharves. In the United States, train ferries are sometimes referred to as "car ferries", as distinguished from "auto ferries" used to transport automobiles. The wharf has a ramp, and a linkspan or "apron", balanced by weights, that connects the railway proper to the ship, allowing for tidal or seasonal changes in water level.
LeShuttle is a railway shuttle service between Calais in France and Folkestone in United Kingdom. It conveys road vehicles and passengers by rail through the Channel Tunnel. Freight vehicles are carried in separate shuttle trains hauled by the same locomotives, that also contain a passenger carriage, known as the Club Car.
A covered hopper is a self-clearing, enclosed, weatherproof railroad freight car. It has a fixed roof, sides, and ends with openings for loading through the top and unloading through the bottom. Covered hopper cars are designed for carrying dry bulk loads, such as grain, sand, clay and Portland cement.
In rail transport, head-end power (HEP), also known as electric train supply (ETS), is the electrical power distribution system on a passenger train. The power source, usually a locomotive at the front or 'head' of a train, provides the electricity used for heating, lighting, electrical and other 'hotel' needs. The maritime equivalent is hotel electric power. A successful attempt by the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway in October 1881 to light the passenger cars on the London to Brighton route heralded the beginning of using electricity to light trains in the world.
A rotary car dumper or wagon tippler (UK) is a mechanism used for unloading certain railroad cars such as hopper cars, gondolas or mine cars. It holds the rail car to a section of track and then rotates the track and car together to dump out the contents. Used with gondola cars, it is making open hopper cars obsolete. Because hopper cars require sloped chutes in order to direct the contents to the bottom dump doors (hatches) for unloading, gondola cars allow cars to be lower, thus lowering their center of gravity, while carrying the same gross rail load. Cars are equipped with rotary couplers to allow dumping them while they are still coupled; a "Double Rotary" gondola or hopper has rotary couplers on both ends to allow it to be unloaded while it remains coupled to stationary cars at each end.
Rail freight transport is the use of railways and trains to transport cargo as opposed to human passengers.
Tinsley was a railway marshalling yard near Tinsley in Sheffield, England, used to separate railway wagons from incoming trains and add them to new trains. It was sited immediately west of the M1 motorway, about one mile north of the Catcliffe junction. It was opened in 1965, as a part of a major plan to rationalise all aspects of the rail services in the Sheffield area; it closed in stages from 1985, with the run-down of rail freight in Britain. It was also the site of Tinsley Traction Maintenance Depot (TMD), which was closed in 1998; at its peak, 200 locomotives were allocated to this depot.
Kalmar Verkstad AB (KVAB) was a Swedish train and automobile manufacturer in Kalmar, Sweden that made the Tjorven and Terminal. KVAB was founded in 1902 and closed in 2005 by Bombardier.
A RIP track, short for repair in place track, is a designated track, or tracks, in a rail yard or a siding along a section of a main rail line where locomotives and/or railroad cars can be placed for minor repairs. A RIP track allows for minor repairs to be done without removing the units from service and sometimes allows for these repairs to be done without removing a freight load from the car. In some yards, a RIP track may be used for staging locomotives or damaged cars for major repairs and some rail yards may have more than one RIP track to serve both functions.
Geilenkirchen station is in Geilenkirchen in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia on the Aachen–Mönchengladbach railway. It is the only railway station in the town of Geilenkirchen. It provided an interchange between the mainline railway and the Geilenkirchen District Railway until 1971 and was a stop for long-distance traffic until 2001. It is classified by Deutsche Bahn as a category 4 station.
References
- ↑ "Car Spotter Drive", a US patent description
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