![JacobsBogieArticulatedWellCarCanadianPacificTrainBoltonON](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/51/JacobsBogieArticulatedWellCarCanadianPacificTrainBoltonON.jpg)
Articulated cars are
rail vehicles
In rail transport, a train (from Old French , from Latin , "to pull, to draw") 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 (often know ...
which consist of a number of cars which are semi-permanently attached to each other and share common
Jacobs bogie
Jacobs bogies (named after Wilhelm Jakobs,, 1858–1942, a German mechanical railway engineer) are a type of rail vehicle bogie commonly found on articulated railcars and tramway vehicles.
Instead of being underneath a piece of rolling stock, ...
s or axles and/or have car elements without axles suspended by the neighbouring car elements.
They are much longer than single
passenger car
A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people instead of goods.
The year 1886 is regarded as ...
s. Because of the difficulty and cost of separating each car from the next, they are operated as a single unit, often called a ''trainset''.
Passenger cars
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
The London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) was the second largest (after LMS) of the " Big Four" railway companies created by the Railways Act 1921 in Britain. It operated from 1 January 1923 until nationalisation on 1 January 1948. At th ...
also made use of articulated technology.
Freight cars
Manufacturers such as
Gunderson make articulated,
low-floor "well" cars, articulated
trailer carriers and articulated
autoracks. At long,
Modalohr
The Lohr Railway System or Modalohr System (french: Système Modalohr) uses special railway wagons of a type known as piggyback wagons, to carry standard road semi-trailers on the European rail network.[bogie
A bogie ( ) (in some senses called a truck in North American English) 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 transp ...]
s, 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
An axle or axletree is a central shaft for a rotating wheel or gear. On wheeled vehicles, the axle may be fixed to the wheels, rotating with them, or fixed to the vehicle, with the wheels rotating around the axle. In the former case, bearing ...
is higher compared to conventional train sets due to the reduced number of wheels and bogies.
See also
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Articulated Light Rail Vehicle
The Canadian Light Rail Vehicle (CLRV) and Articulated Light Rail Vehicle (ALRV) were types of streetcars used by the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) from the late 1970s until the late 2010s. They were built following the TTC's decision to r ...
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Articulated trams
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Articulated vehicle
An articulated vehicle is a vehicle which has a permanent or semi-permanent pivot joint
In animal anatomy, a pivot joint (trochoid joint, rotary joint or lateral ginglymus) is a type of synovial joint whose movement axis is parallel to the lo ...
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Illinois Central 121
Illinois Central 121 (IC #121) was a diesel streamliner built in 1936 by Pullman-Standard and powered by Electro-Motive Corporation, which was used by the Illinois Central Railroad on the ''Green Diamond''. Its fixed five-car consist was also ...
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Stadler FLIRT
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Talgo
Talgo (officially Patentes Talgo, SAU) is a Spanish manufacturer of intercity, standard, and high-speed passenger trains.
Corporate history
TALGO, an abbreviation of Tren Articulado Ligero Goicoechea Oriol (English: ''Lightweight articulated tra ...
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TGV
The TGV (french: Train à Grande Vitesse, "high-speed train"; previously french: TurboTrain à Grande Vitesse, label=none) is France's intercity high-speed rail service, operated by SNCF. SNCF worked on a high-speed rail network from 1966 to 19 ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Articulated Car
Rolling stock
Articulated vehicles