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".
A railbus is a lightweight passenger rail vehicle that shares many aspects of its construction with a bus, typically having a bus body and four wheels on a fixed base, instead of on bogies. Originally designed and developed during the 1930s, railbuses have evolved into larger dimensions, with characteristics similar in appearance to a light railcar, with the terms railcar and railbus often used interchangeably. Railbuses designed for use specifically on little-used railway lines were commonly employed in countries such as Germany, Italy, France, the United Kingdom and Sweden.
The Northern Counties Motor & Engineering Company was an English builder of bus and coach bodywork based in Wigan.
Duple Coachbuilders was a coach and bus bodybuilder in England from 1919 until 1989.
Carlyle Works was an English builder of bus and coach bodywork based in Edgbaston.
Following the end of World War II, most railways throughout the world were looking to either update their fleet of steam locomotives with new and more economical designs or look towards alternatives, which for many meant a programme of dieselisation. The main considerations were the rising cost of coal against diesel oil and the weight of the trains causing wear and tear on the track. In looking to the dieselisation of their system the Ulster Transport Authority (UTA) made early inroads with small, lightweight diesel units, based on those built for the Great Western Railway in England, using the same manufacturers to supply parts and undertaking construction in their own workshops.
The East Kent Road Car Company Ltd was a bus company formed in 1916 and based in Canterbury, Kent. The company operated bus and coach services in Kent. In 1993 it was one of the first companies to be acquired by the Stagecoach Group, which eventually rebranded the operation as Stagecoach in East Kent, and made it part of the Stagecoach South East bus division.
Charles H Roe was a Yorkshire coachbuilding company. It was for most of its life based at Crossgates Carriage Works, in Leeds.
Bristol Commercial Vehicles was a vehicle manufacturer located in Bristol, England. Most production was of buses but trucks and railbus chassis were also built.
A lowbridge double-deck bus is a double-decker bus that has an asymmetric interior layout, enabling the overall height of the vehicle to be reduced compared to that of a conventional double-decker bus. The upper deck gangway is offset to one side of the vehicle, normally the offside, and is sunken into the lower deck passenger saloon. Low railway bridges and overpasses are the main reason that a reduced height is desired.
Barton Transport was a bus company that operated in Nottinghamshire from 1908 until 1989.
The Ford Thames 400E is a commercial vehicle that was made by Ford UK and introduced in 1957. Production of the range continued until September 1965, by which time a total of 187,000 had been built.
Martin & King was a manufacturing company based in Melbourne, Australia. The company specialised in motor vehicle bodies and railway locomotives and rolling stock.
The Petone Workshops were a government-owned railways maintenance and repair facility located in Petone, in Lower Hutt in the Wellington region of New Zealand's North Island. It took over construction and maintenance of rolling stock in the Wellington region from the Pipitea Point facility, starting in 1876, and became the only such facility in the region from 1878 until the opening of the replacement Hutt Workshops facility in 1929.
The Foden NC was an unsuccessful design of double-decker bus chassis built by Foden of Sandbach and Northern Counties of Wigan in the United Kingdom between 1975 and 1978.
The Doncaster trolleybus system once served the town of Doncaster, South Yorkshire, England. Opened on 22 August 1928, it gradually replaced the Doncaster Corporation Tramways. By the standards of the various now-defunct trolleybus systems in the United Kingdom, the Doncaster system was a moderately sized one, with a total of 6 routes, all radiating out from the town centre, and a maximum fleet of 47 trolleybuses. The Bentley route was the first to close, on 12 February 1956, and the Beckett Road route was the last to go, on 14 December 1963.
Wigan Corporation Tramways operated a tramway service in Wigan, England, between 1901 and 1931. The first tramway service in the town was run by the Wigan Tramways Company, whose horse trams began carrying passengers in 1880. They began replacing horses with steam tram locomotives from 1882, but the company failed in 1890, when a Receiver was appointed to manage it. The Wigan & District Tramways Company took over the system in 1893, and ran it until 1902. Meanwhile, Wigan Corporation were planning their own tramway system, obtaining an authorising Act of Parliament in 1893, and a second one in 1898. This enabled them to build electric tramways, and in 1902, they took over the lines of the Wigan & District Tramways Company.
The Upper Rhine Railway Company, was an railway infrastructure company and transport company based in Mannheim, Germany. It operated the metre-gauge railways among Mannheim, Heidelberg and Weinheim. The company was merged with MVV Verkehr AG on 16 March 2010.
Longwell Green Coachworks, formerly W. J. Bence & Sons and then Bence Motor Bodies Ltd, was a vehicle manufacturer based in Longwell Green, Bristol, England. It built the bodies of buses, coaches, vans and lorries on chassis supplied by other manufacturers. The company was in business from 1919 until 1983.
Sunbeam Commercial Vehicles was a commercial vehicle manufacturing offshoot of the Wolverhampton based Sunbeam Motor Car Company when it was a subsidiary of S T D Motors Limited. Sunbeam had always made ambulances on modified Sunbeam car chassis. S T D Motors chose to enter the large commercial vehicle market in the late 1920s, and once established they made petrol and diesel buses and electrically powered trolleybuses and milk floats. Commercial Vehicles became a separate department of Sunbeam in 1931.
