A draisine () is a light auxiliary
rail vehicle
The term rolling stock in the rail transport industry refers to railway vehicles, including both powered and unpowered vehicles: for example, locomotives, freight and passenger cars (or coaches), and non-revenue cars. Passenger vehicles can be ...
, driven by service personnel, equipped to transport crew and material necessary for the maintenance of railway infrastructure.
The eponymous term is derived from the German inventor
Baron
Baron is a rank of nobility or title of honour, often hereditary, in various European countries, either current or historical. The female equivalent is baroness. Typically, the title denotes an aristocrat who ranks higher than a lord or knig ...
Karl Drais
Karl Freiherr von Drais (full name: Karl Friedrich Christian Ludwig Freiherr Drais von Sauerbronn) (29 April 1785 – 10 December 1851) was a noble German forest official and significant inventor in the Biedermeier period. He was born and died ...
, who invented his ''
Laufmaschine
The dandy horse, a derogatory term for what was first called a Laufmaschine (in German), then a vélocipède or draisienne (in French and then English), and then a pedestrian curricle or hobby-horse, or swiftwalker, is a human-powered vehicle th ...
'' (
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
for "running machine") in 1817, which was called ''Draisine'' in German (''vélocipède'' or ''draisienne'' in French) by the press. It is the first reliable claim for a practically used precursor to the
bicycle
A bicycle, also called a pedal cycle, bike or cycle, is a human-powered or motor-powered assisted, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, having two wheels attached to a frame, one behind the other. A is called a cyclist, or bicyclist.
Bic ...
, basically the first commercially successful two-wheeled, steerable, human-propelled machine, nicknamed hobby-horse or
dandy horse
The dandy horse, a derogatory term for what was first called a Laufmaschine (in German), then a vélocipède or draisienne (in French and then English), and then a pedestrian curricle or hobby-horse, or swiftwalker, is a human-powered vehicle th ...
.
Later, the name draisine came to be applied only to the invention used on rails and was extended to similar vehicles, even when not human-powered. Because of their low weight and small size, they can be put on and taken off the rails at any place, allowing trains to pass.
In the United States, motor-powered draisines are known as
speeders while
human-powered ones are referred as
handcar
A handcar (also known as a pump trolley, pump car, rail push trolley, push-trolley, jigger, Kalamazoo, velocipede, or draisine) is a railroad car powered by its passengers, or by people pushing the car from behind. It is mostly used as a railway ...
s. Vehicles that can be driven on both the highway and the rail line are called
road–rail vehicle
A road–rail vehicle or a rail–road vehicle is a dual-mode vehicle which can operate both on rail tracks and roads. They are also known as two-way vehicles (german: Zweiwegefahrzeug), hi-rail (from ''highway'' and ''railway'', or variations ...
s, or (after a trademark) Hy-Rails.
Dressin, velorail, trolley, or railbike
"Draisines", called ''dressin'' in
Swedish
Swedish or ' may refer to:
Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically:
* Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland
** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...
, ''dresin'' in
Norwegian
Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to:
*Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe
* Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway
* Demographics of Norway
*The Norwegian language, including ...
, ''dræsine'' in
Danish
Danish may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark
People
* A national or citizen of Denmark, also called a "Dane," see Demographics of Denmark
* Culture of Denmark
* Danish people or Danes, people with a Danish a ...
, and ''resiina'' in
Finnish
Finnish may refer to:
* Something or someone from, or related to Finland
* Culture of Finland
* Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland
* Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people
* Finnish cuisine
See also ...
, refers to pedal-powered rail-cycles which were used by railroad maintenance workers in Finland, Sweden, and Norway until about 1950, as handcars were elsewhere.
Draisines nowadays are used for recreation on several unused railway lines in Germany, Sweden, Norway, Poland, some other European countries and South Korea. Several companies rent draisines in Sweden. In the United States, railbike tours have operated in several states nationwide: California, Maine, Oregon, the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York, and Delaware.
Until 2007, Finland hosted an annual competition, ''Resiina-ralli'' (''Draisine Rally''), involving several draisine teams travelling for many days on the railways from one corner of the country to another.
Types
Image:Drezyna 442.jpg, Hand-lever draisine handcar
File:Dresina.jpg,
Image:Draisine outdoor exhibition Metelen.jpg, Functioning draisine
Image:Three-wheelDraisineSRM.jpg, Three-wheeled draisine at the Saskatchewan Railway Museum
The Saskatchewan Railway Museum is a railway museum located west of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan at the intersection of the Pike Lake Highway (Hwy 60) and the Canadian National Railway tracks (on "Hawker" siding). It is operated by the Saskatchewan R ...
exhibited by a railway history museum in Metelen
Metelen is a municipality in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located on the river Vechte in the district of Steinfurt. Metelen Land station is located on the Münster–Enschede railway and has an hourly train service to Münster in one di ...
, Germany
Image:Tricicle combined railway bike combined pedal and hand driven Khabarovsk Russia museum of Amur bridge.jpg, Combined pedal and hand driven railway bike in museum of Khabarovsk Bridge
Khabarovsk Bridge is a road and rail bridge built in 1999. It crosses the Amur River in eastern Russia, and connects the urban-type settlement of Imeni Telmana in the Jewish Autonomous Oblast with the city of Khabarovsk in Khabarovsk Krai. Until ...
, Russia
Image:RailVelocipede.jpg, Three-wheeled handcar designed to be operated by a single person, widely known in the United States as a handcar or velocipede
Image:Schienenfahrrad.JPG, Pedaled four-wheel rail-cycle draisine
Image:HotchkissBikeRR.JPG, Purpose-built bicycle for riding the Hotchkiss Bicycle Railroad
File:Draisines in Broby, 2009-09-02.jpg, A row of draisines for hire: The railway runs between Broby and Glimminge, Sweden
Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...
Image:USFSRailcarWilliams5171.JPG, Speeders is another term for a small motorized draisine.
Image:Speeder-Draisine-SMR.jpg, Motorized draisines are known as speeders, trolleys, or “jiggers” in the United States and Canada
Image:Draisine Namibia.jpg, Draisine for crew transport and railway track
A railway track (British English and UIC terminology) or railroad track (American English), also known as permanent way or simply track, is the structure on a railway or railroad consisting of the rails, fasteners, railroad ties (sleepers, ...
inspection in Namibia
Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and ea ...
2017
Image:Rail bus01.jpg, Even this small railbus
A railbus is a lightweight passenger railcar that shares many aspects of its construction with a bus, typically having a bus (original or modified) body and four wheels on a fixed base, instead of on bogies. Originally designed and developed d ...
is related to the draisine
Automotive draisines
File:StateLibQld 2 164431 Jeep shunting empty coal hoppers, Brisbane.jpg, Jeep
Jeep is an American automobile marque, now owned by multi-national corporation Stellantis. Jeep has been part of Chrysler since 1987, when Chrysler acquired the Jeep brand, along with remaining assets, from its previous owner American Moto ...
shunting empty coal hoppers, World War II
File:France Paris Champs Elysees Dodge.JPG, And the "Big jeep" (or "Beep"), the WWII Dodge WC model, was also used for draisine duty
Image:GAZ-13 Chaika draisine.jpg, Car (Russian GAZ-13 Chaika) converted into a railroad speeder
A speeder (also known as a section car, railway motor car, putt-putt, track-maintenance car, crew car, jigger, trike, quad, trolley, inspection car, or a draisine) is a small railcar formerly used around the world by track inspectors and work cre ...
, at the Hungarian Railway Museum
The Magyar Vasúttörténeti Park ("Hungarian Railway History Park") is a railway museum located in Budapest, Hungary at a railway station and workshop of the Hungarian State Railways (MÁV), the former Budapest North Depot. The museum covers mor ...
Image:VW T1-BD 20-5031.JPG, ''Deutsche Bundesbahn
The Deutsche Bundesbahn or DB (German Federal Railway) was formed as the state railway of the newly established Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) on 7 September 1949 as a successor of the Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft (DRG). The DB remained ...
'' railroad speeder
A speeder (also known as a section car, railway motor car, putt-putt, track-maintenance car, crew car, jigger, trike, quad, trolley, inspection car, or a draisine) is a small railcar formerly used around the world by track inspectors and work cre ...
based on the Volkswagen Type 2
The Volkswagen Type 2, known officially (depending on body type) as the Transporter, Kombi or Microbus, or, informally, as the Bus (US), Camper (UK) or Bulli (Germany), is a forward control light commercial vehicle introduced in 1950 by the Ge ...
Military use
The military use of draisines concerned, first of all, armoured draisines. They were light armoured rail motor vehicles, intended for reconnaissance, scouting, track patrolling, and other auxiliary combat tasks, usually belonging to
armoured train
An armoured train is a railway train protected with armour. Armoured trains usually include railway wagons armed with artillery, machine guns and autocannons. Some also had slits used to fire small arms from the inside of the train, a facili ...
s. Early vehicles of this kind were built in Russia during World War I. Later, often
armoured cars
Armored (or armoured) car or vehicle may refer to:
Wheeled armored vehicles
* Armoured fighting vehicle, any armed combat vehicle protected by armor
** Armored car (military), a military wheeled armored vehicle
* Armored car (valuables), an arm ...
were used as armoured draisines, after exchanging their wheels to railroad ones, or fitting them with additional retractable railroad rollers. Some countries, however, manufactured purpose-built armoured draisines between the wars, such as the USSR and Czechoslovakia. Peculiar vehicles were Polish armoured draisines - they were
tank
A tank is an armoured fighting vehicle intended as a primary offensive weapon in front-line ground combat. Tank designs are a balance of heavy firepower, strong armour, and good battlefield mobility provided by tracks and a powerful engin ...
s or
tankette
A tankette is a tracked armoured fighting vehicle that resembles a small tank, roughly the size of a car. It is mainly intended for light infantry support and scouting. s fitted with special rail chassis, able to be used on rails or on the ground, leaving the rail chassis on the rails. Some countries developed railtrack armoured draisines, with retractable tracks railroad wheels; they were not widely used, however. Different armoured draisines were used during the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, starting from the
invasion of Poland
The invasion of Poland (1 September – 6 October 1939) was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union which marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week aft ...
by
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
.
Prior to World War II, the Japanese Empire had already made extensive use of draisines such as the
Sumida M.2593 in the
Japanese invasion of Manchuria
The Empire of Japan's Kwantung Army invaded Manchuria on 18 September 1931, immediately following the Mukden Incident. At the war's end in February 1932, the Japanese established the puppet state of Manchukuo. Their occupation lasted until the ...
and the
Sino-Japanese War. From 1952, the
Wikham Armoured Trolley was used by British security forces during the
Malayan Emergency
The Malayan Emergency, also known as the Anti–British National Liberation War was a guerrilla war fought in British Malaya between communist pro-independence fighters of the Malayan National Liberation Army (MNLA) and the military forces o ...
.
Construction
People have been putting bicycles on railroad tracks ever since there have been both bicycles and railroads. From time to time, factory-built models have been available, beginning with a device marketed in 1908 through the
Sears
Sears, Roebuck and Co. ( ), commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began a ...
catalogue for just US$5.45 ().
There are many designs of draisine. However, certain fundamentals of railbike design must be adhered to, foremost among them the reconciliation of a bicycle's stability with adaptation to riding on a
railway track
A railway track (British English and UIC terminology) or railroad track (American English), also known as permanent way or simply track, is the structure on a railway or railroad consisting of the rails, fasteners, railroad ties (sleepers, ...
: bicycles are kept upright by the rider steering in the direction of an impending fall, but this ability is sacrificed when the bicycle is constrained by rails. Simply adding flanged wheels to a conventional bicycle would make it impossible to balance, so the typical approach to stabilization is to add an
outrigger
An outrigger is a projecting structure on a boat, with specific meaning depending on types of vessel. Outriggers may also refer to legs on a wheeled vehicle that are folded out when it needs stabilization, for example on a crane that lifts ...
, with roller(s), across to the second rail from near the bicycle’s rear wheel. Even such an outrigger system is not without its complications, as tracks that are no longer perfectly parallel — common on sections of abandoned track — can result in
derailment
In rail transport, a derailment occurs when a rail vehicle such as a train comes off its rails. Although many derailments are minor, all result in temporary disruption of the proper operation of the railway system and they are a potentially ...
. Additional guide rollers can help alleviate this problem at the expense of greater weight.
See also
*
Balance bicycle
A balance bicycle, run bike or no pedal bike or dandy horse is a training bicycle that helps children learn balance and steering. It has no foot pedals, no drivetrain, no chain, no gears, no gear shifters, no derailleurs, and no freewheel.
Desig ...
*
Handcar
A handcar (also known as a pump trolley, pump car, rail push trolley, push-trolley, jigger, Kalamazoo, velocipede, or draisine) is a railroad car powered by its passengers, or by people pushing the car from behind. It is mostly used as a railway ...
*
History of the bicycle
Vehicles that have two wheels and require balancing by the rider date back to the early 19th century. The first means of transport making use of two wheels arranged consecutively, and thus the archetype of the bicycle, was the German ''draisine' ...
*
Human-powered land vehicle
Human-powered land vehicles are land vehicles propelled over ground by human power, The main ways to support the weight of a human-powered land vehicle and its contents above the ground are rolling contact; sliding contact; intermittent contact; ...
*
Norry, improvised draisines used in
Cambodia
Cambodia (; also Kampuchea ; km, កម្ពុជា, UNGEGN: ), officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochinese Peninsula in Southeast Asia, spanning an area of , bordered by Thailand t ...
* In the film ''
Frog Dreaming
''Frog Dreaming'' is a 1986 Australian family adventure film written by Everett De Roche and directed by Brian Trenchard-Smith. It starred Henry Thomas, Tony Barry, Rachel Friend and Tamsin West.
Plot
An American boy, Cody (Thomas), whose pare ...
'' (1986), the young protagonist builds and uses a railbike.
*
Railbus
A railbus is a lightweight passenger railcar that shares many aspects of its construction with a bus, typically having a bus (original or modified) body and four wheels on a fixed base, instead of on bogies. Originally designed and developed d ...
*
Railroad speeder
A speeder (also known as a section car, railway motor car, putt-putt, track-maintenance car, crew car, jigger, trike, quad, trolley, inspection car, or a draisine) is a small railcar formerly used around the world by track inspectors and work cre ...
*
Railway Mokes
*
Taiwanese push car railways
References
External links
Railriders Video produced by
Oregon Field Guide
''Oregon Field Guide'' is a weekly television program produced by Oregon Public Broadcasting focusing on recreation, the outdoors, and environmental issues in the state of Oregon. The show has become part of the Oregon zeitgeist. Steve Amen is th ...
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