Michelines were a series of rubber-tyred trains developed in France in the 1930s by various rail companies and rubber-tyre manufacturer

Michelin Michelin ( , ), in full ("General Company of the Michelin Enterprises P.L.S."), is a French multinational tyre manufacturing company based in Clermont-Ferrand in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes '' région'' of France. It is the second largest t ...

. Some Michelines were built in the United States by the Budd Company. Most Michelines were self-propelled, but a number of

locomotive A locomotive is a rail transport, rail vehicle that provides the motive power for a train. Traditionally, locomotives pulled trains from the front. However, Push–pull train, push–pull operation has become common, and in the pursuit for ...

-hauled trainsets were also produced. Michelines offered unprecedented ride smoothness, but they soon proved to be problematic because the low load that the wheels could bear limited railcar sizes and demanded a high number of tyres (up to 20) per car. Furthermore, they were subject to flat tyres, unlike cars with steel wheels. Eventually, the Michelines gave way to

rubber-tyred metro A rubber-tyred metro or rubber-tired metro is a form of rapid transit system that uses a mix of road transport, road and rail transport, rail technology. The vehicles have wheels with rubber tires that run on a roll way inside guide bars for tr ...

s, pioneered by the RATP (Paris transit authority) which introduced them for their superior acceleration characteristics, in order to increase the capacity of their subway lines. However, as time went by, the extra complexity of rubber-tyred rolling stock meant that they were superseded by conventional steel-wheel rolling stock.

References

{{Michelin Corporation, state=autocollapse Michelin Railcars of France

See also

References