|
NZR RM Class (Leyland Petrol)
The NZR RM class Leyland petrol railcar was an experimental railcar built and trialled in New Zealand in 1925 by New Zealand Railways (NZR). It should not be confused with the two much smaller Leyland diesel railbuses of 1936. Background New Zealand's experimentation with railcars began in 1912 with the use of a MacEwan-Pratt petrol railcar. NZR, which ran the national rail network, was looking for ways to run rural passenger services with as little expense as possible, but at the same time presenting an attractive form of transport to passengers. Many rural branch lines at the time ran "mixed" trains that carried both passengers and freight and were not particularly popular due to the slow schedule that resulted from loading and unloading goods during the journey. NZR saw the use of railcars as a potential means of providing cheap and efficient rural passenger travel, and as railcar technology was not very well developed at the time, engineers experimented with new ideas an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
NZR RM Class
The RM class was the classification used by the New Zealand Railways Department (NZR) and its successors gave to most railcars and railbuses that have operated on New Zealand's national rail network. "RM" stands for Rail Motor which was the common name at the turn of the 20th century for what became known in New Zealand as railcars. As many types of railcars are operated, class names have been given to each railcar type to differentiate them from others. Experimental and early railcars In the early 20th century, NZR began investigating railcar technology to provide profitable and efficient passenger services on regional routes and rural branch lines where carriage trains were not economic and "mixed" trains (passenger carriage(s) attached to freight trains) were undesirably slow. A number of experimental railcars and railbuses were developed: * 1912: RM1 MacEwan-Pratt petrol railcar - the first railcar to operate in New Zealand * 1914: RM1 (number re-used) Westinghouse petr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Railcar
A railcar (not to be confused with a railway car) 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 (carriage, car), with a driver's cab at one or both ends. Some railway companies, such as the Great Western, termed such vehicles " railmotors" (or "rail motors"). Self-propelled passenger vehicles also capable of hauling a train are, in technical rail usage, more usually called " rail motor coaches" or "motor cars" (not to be confused with the motor cars, otherwise known as automobiles, that operate on roads). The term is sometimes also used as an alternative name for the small types of multiple unit which consist of more than one coach. That is the general usage nowadays in Ireland when referring to any diesel multiple unit (DMU), or in some cases electric multiple unit (EMU). In North America the term "railcar" has a much broader sense and can be used (as a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island country by area, covering . New Zealand is about east of Australia across the Tasman Sea and south of the islands of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga. The country's varied topography and sharp mountain peaks, including the Southern Alps, owe much to tectonic uplift and volcanic eruptions. New Zealand's capital city is Wellington, and its most populous city is Auckland. The islands of New Zealand were the last large habitable land to be settled by humans. Between about 1280 and 1350, Polynesians began to settle in the islands and then developed a distinctive Māori culture. In 1642, the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman became the first European to sight and record New Zealand. In 1840, representatives of the United Kingdom and Māori chiefs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New Zealand Railways Department
The New Zealand Railways Department, NZR or NZGR (New Zealand Government Railways) and often known as the "Railways", was a government department charged with owning and maintaining New Zealand's railway infrastructure and operating the railway system. The Department was created in 1880 and was corporatised on 1 April 1982 into the New Zealand Railways Corporation. Originally, railway construction and operation took place under the auspices of the former provincial governments and some private railways, before all of the provincial operations came under the central Public Works Department. The role of operating the rail network was subsequently separated from that of the network's construction. From 1895 to 1993 there was a responsible Minister, the Minister of Railways. He was often also the Minister of Public Works. Apart from four brief experiments with independent boards, NZR remained under direct ministerial control for most of its history. History Originally, New Zea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
NZR RM Class (Leyland Diesel)
The NZR RM class Midland railcar (or Leyland diesel railcar) was the first successful railcar, and first diesel-powered vehicle, to enter revenue service in New Zealand. Two were built, RM 20 and RM 21, and they ran for five years from 1936 to 1941 before being replaced by larger Vulcan railcars. They operated primarily on the Midland Line and the Greymouth-Hokitika portion of the Ross Branch These kinds of vehicles were known in some other countries by a variety of other names, including "railbuses" and "railmotors". However, such self-propelled passenger vehicles were known in New Zealand as "railcars" from the late-1920s onwards. Background The New Zealand Railways Department (NZR) had been looking for an economic means of handling regional and rural passenger traffic for over two decades. Branch lines in rural New Zealand were typically operated by mixed trains that carried both passengers and goods, and their schedules were usually slow due to the loading and unloading o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
NZR RM Class (MacEwan-Pratt)
The NZR RM class McEwan Pratt petrol rail motor (misspelt as ''MacEwan-Pratt'' by some authors) was the first rail motor to run on New Zealand's national rail network, though it was never used in revenue service. It was built in 1912 at a time when the New Zealand Railways Department (NZR) was seeking alternative methods of providing rural passenger transportation. "Mixed" trains that carried both passengers and freight were typical on country branch lines as there was not sufficient traffic to justify a separate passenger train, but the schedule delays caused by loading and unloading freight during the journey made the mixed trains undesirable. Introduction NZR began investigating whether railcars could provide a more efficient passenger service with low operating costs. At the time, railcar technology was new and the rugged nature of New Zealand's terrain made the task of finding a successful design more difficult. The railcar's four-cylinder petrol engine and running gear ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rail Transport In New Zealand
Rail transport in New Zealand is an integral part of New Zealand's transport network, with a nationwide network of of track linking most major cities in the North and South Islands, connected by inter-island rail and road ferries. Rail transport in New Zealand has a particular focus on bulk freight exports and imports, with 19 million net tonnes moved by rail annually, with 99.5% of New Zealand's exports and imports being transported through the country's seaports. Rail transport played an important role in the opening up and development of the hinterland outside of New Zealand's predominantly dispersed and coastal settlements. Starting with the Ferrymead Railway in 1863, most public railway lines were short, built by provincial governments and connected major centres to their nearest seaport (such as Christchurch and its port at Lyttelton Harbour). From the 1870s, the focus shifted to building a nationwide network linking major centres, especially during the Vogel Era of r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Petone Workshops
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. History Predecessor The first railway workshops in the Wellington region were near Wellington's first railway station at Pipitea Point Railway Station, Pipitea Point. These workshops started out as a set of storage sheds for rolling stock when the first section of the Wairarapa Line was being constructed from 1872 to 1874. Later a repair and erecting shop was built at the site at the behest of Messrs John Brogden and Sons, Brogden and Sons, who arranged for the workshops to be fitted out with equipment imported from England. The building wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
UIC Classification
The UIC classification of locomotive axle arrangements, sometimes known as the German classification''The Railway Data File''. Leicester: Silverdale, 2000. p. 52. . or German system,Kalla-Bishop P.M. & Greggio, Luciano, ''Steam Locomotives'', Crescent, 1985, p. 226. describes the wheel arrangement of locomotives, multiple units and trams. It is used in much of the world, notable exceptions being the United Kingdom, which uses a slightly simplified form of UIC (except for steam locomotives and small diesel shunters, where Whyte notation is used), and in North America, where the AAR wheel arrangement system (essentially another simplification of the UIC system) is used to describe diesel and electric locomotives; Whyte notation is used in North America only for steam locomotives. The classification system is managed by the International Union of Railways (UIC). Structure The UIC uses the following structure: ; Upper-case letters : Indicate driving axles, starting at A for a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 transport. A bogie may remain normally attached (as on many railroad cars and semi-trailers) or be quickly detachable (as the dolly in a road train or in railway bogie exchange); it may contain a suspension within it (as most rail and trucking bogies do), or be solid and in turn be suspended (as most bogies of tracked vehicles are); it may be mounted on a swivel, as traditionally on a railway carriage or locomotive, additionally jointed and sprung (as in the landing gear of an airliner), or held in place by other means (centreless bogies). In Scotland, the term is used for a child’s (usually home-made) wooden cart. While ''bogie'' is the preferred spelling and first-listed variant in various dictionaries, bogey and bogy are also used. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
NZR RM Class (Edison Battery-electric)
The NZR RM class Edison battery-electric railcar was a railcar that ran in Canterbury, New Zealand for eight years. It was built for New Zealand Railways (NZR) as a prototype for battery-electric railcars. While the railcar, classified "RM 6", was considered the first successful railcar in New Zealand, it was later destroyed in a fire, and battery-electric traction for railcars was not developed further in New Zealand. Two other classes of battery-electric locomotives were introduced about the same time as RM 6, the E class of 1922 and the EB class of 1925. Background In the 1920s, NZR began experimenting with railcars as a way of replacing mixed trains that carried both passengers and goods and ran too slow schedules as they had to load and unload freight regularly. In December 1923 a former NZR employee, Ambrose Reeves Harris, who was a personal assistant to Thomas Edison and was working for the Edison company, wrote to Minister of Railways Gordon Coates suggesting battery- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Little River Branch
The Little River Branch was a branch line railway that formed part of New Zealand's national rail network. It diverged from the Southbridge Branch in Lincoln and ran down Banks Peninsula in the Canterbury region of the South Island. It was opened to Little River in 1886 and operated until 1962. Construction Little River contained one of only two significant stands of timber in the Canterbury region (the other, near Oxford, was serviced by the Oxford Branch), and accordingly, plans were made to build a line to provide convenient transportation and stimulate economic activity. These were finalised in 1879, and construction was under way by the next year. On 16 May 1882, the first 27.44 km of the line were opened to Birdling's Flat, and almost four years later, the next nine kilometres were opened to Little River. There were proposals to extend the line as far as Akaroa, but these did not eventuate and Little River remained the terminus. Operation In the early ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
.jpg "Click for more on -> Railcar")
