Rail car mover - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

A rail car mover is a road-rail vehicle

Road-rail vehicle

A road–rail vehicle is a self-propelled vehicle that can be legally used on both roads and rails. Combining the words "highway" and "rail", one is often referred to as a hi-rail truck or just hi-rail, sometimes spelled high-rail, HiRail or Hy-rail. They are normally converted rubber-tired road...

(capable of travelling on both roads and rail tracks) fitted with couplers

Coupling (railway)

A coupling is a mechanism for connecting rolling stock in a train. The design of the coupler is standard, and is almost as important as the railway gauge, since flexibility and convenience are maximised if all rolling stock can be coupled together.The equipment that connects the couplings to the...

for moving small numbers of railroad car

Railroad car

A railroad car or railway vehicle , also known as a bogie in Indian English, is a vehicle on a rail transport system that is used for the carrying of cargo or passengers. Cars can be coupled together into a train and hauled by one or more locomotives...

s around in a rail siding

Rail siding

A siding, in rail terminology, is a low-speed track section distinct from a running line or through route such as a main line or branch line or spur. It may connect to through track or to other sidings at either end...

or small yard

Classification yard

A classification yard or marshalling yard is a railroad yard found at some freight train stations, used to separate railroad cars on to one of several tracks. First the cars are taken to a track, sometimes called a lead or a drill...

. They are extensively used by railroad customers because they are cheaper than owning a switcher

Switcher

A switcher or shunter is a small railroad locomotive intended not for moving trains over long distances but rather for assembling trains ready for a road locomotive to take over, disassembling a train that has been...

locomotive

Locomotive

A locomotive is a railway vehicle that provides the motive power for a train. The word originates from the Latin loco – "from a place", ablative of locus, "place" + Medieval Latin motivus, "causing motion", and is a shortened form of the term locomotive engine, first used in the early 19th...

, more convenient and cheaper than paying the railroad operator to do the switching, easier and more productive than manual moving of cars, and in addition they are more versatile since they can travel on road wheels to the cars they need to move, instead of needing clear track.

Some have two drive systems and drive only on steel wheels on the rail, with their rubber tires lifted out of the way, while others have only one drive system and use steel rail wheels only to guide them and use their rubber tires on the rail, in a similar fashion to HiRail trucks

Road-rail vehicle

.

Rail car movers are fairly lightweight, so in order to gain more traction some models transfer weight from the car they are hauling onto their own wheels. Other models that employ the rubber tire drive while on the rail do not require this "weight-transfer" from the railcar.

In Europe, trucks (lorries) fitted with railway wheels and couplings are used as rail car movers (often called towing or shunting vehicles).

Numerous manufacturers produce rail car movers. Perhaps the best known, and one of the earliest, is Trackmobile, whose name is sometimes used inaccurately as a generic term for these vehicles. Other well-known rail car mover brands in North American include Rail King and Shuttlewagon. German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

brands are Unimog
Unimog
Unimog is a range of multi-purpose auto four wheel drive medium trucks produced by Mercedes-Benz, a division of Daimler AG. The name Unimog is pronounced in German and is an acronym for the German "UNIversal-MOtor-Gerät", Gerät being the German word for machine or device...

, Zwiehoff and Zweiweg. In Italy Zephir produces rail-road shunters since 1977, both diesel and electric (battery powered). In Belgium

Belgium

Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

, the company UCA produces the UCA-TRAC, rail/road vehicles based on the chassis of a JCB

J. C. Bamford

JCB is a global construction, demolition and agricultural equipment company headquartered in Rocester, United Kingdom. It is the world's third-largest construction equipment manufacturer. It produces over 300 types of machines, including diggers , excavators, tractors and diesel engines...

Load-All (UCA-TRAC B) and JCB Fastrac

JCB Fastrac

The Fastrac is a high speed agricultural tractor series manufactured by JCB Landpower, part of the J. C. Bamford group of companies.Production began in 1991, with continual development to the present day...

(UCA-TRAC F). The UCA-TRAC provides traction through its rubber wheels.

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