4 ms·

Every Type of Railcar Explained in 15 Minutes [video]

142 points by zdw 3y ago

richardjam73 3y ago
Main ones I see are hoppers and cattle cars. I live quite close to a railyard so it is interesting to see all the trains from a distance. There is no regular passenger services here so I rarely see passenger cars. Most of the freight is coal or grain. Heavy things are generally transported by roads since the mines and powerstations are not always near the rail line.
- HankB99 3y ago
  I live about 100 yards from the Union Pacific mail east/west line out of Chicago and we see a great variety of freight cars, but I cannot recall the last time I saw a stock car. I guess that's because the Chicago stock yards no longer exist except as a neighborhood. The only passenger cars this like carries are the Metra double-deckers (except for the very occasional heritage trail such as the Big Boy entourage.) Amtrak uses the BNSF rails a few miles from here.
- jvolkman 3y ago
  Is this in the US or elsewhere? I don't think livestock travels by rail in the US anymore, but autorack cars (that carry automobiles) look similar. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9c/ETTX_905721_20050529_IL_Rochelle.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9c/ETTX_905...
  - richardjam73 3y ago
    Southern Queensland Australia.
throwaheyy 3y ago
Strangely no mention at all of EMUs, DMUs or single self-propelled rail cars. “Every train has a locomotive” is quite US-centric.
- delta_p_delta_x 3y ago
  I was about to point this out, too. This entire video is US-centric, which explains the dearth of passenger rail content. It completely skips many other types of passenger train. Many high-speed rail (Japanese Shinkansen, German ICE) and almost all rapid transit carriages are EMUs. Double-decker cars are significantly more common in continental Europe. The TGV regularly runs Duplex[1] carriages on the LGV Sud-Est (Paris-Lyon) route, and Swiss Federal Railways has IC2000, IR Double Decker, and the LD Double Decker. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TGV_Duplex https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TGV_Duplex
  - mindslight 3y ago
    Please find or make similar videos for other parts of the world. As a USian that mostly knew about all the types of railcars in this video, that would be awesome.
  - mschuster91 3y ago
    > Many high-speed rail (Japanese Shinkansen, German ICE) and almost all rapid transit carriages are EMUs. Nit pick: The German ICE 1 and 2 series are pulled/pushed by a locomotive [1] that's a direct evolution of the BR 120 locomotive - the world's first electric locomotive to use solid-state converters [2]. As a result of that, the trains have different top speeds depending on the locomotive being on the front (faster) or rear (slower) end [3]. [1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICE_1#Triebk%C3%B6pfe_(Baureihe_401) https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICE_1#Triebk%C3%B6pfe_(Baureih... [2] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/DB-Baureihe_120 https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/DB-Baureihe_120 [3] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICE_2#Betrieb_bei_Seitenwind https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICE_2#Betrieb_bei_Seitenwind
    - rob74 3y ago
      The ICE1 being the longer version with locomotives ("Triebköpfe", literally "driving heads") at both ends, while the ICE2 is only half as long, with only one locomotive, and two of them can be coupled - the restriction you mentioned only applies to these. ...but actually the ones to first use this configuration were the French with their TGV, which was then copied by the Germans and Italians for their respective high-speed trains (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/TGV#Allgemein https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/TGV#Allgemein). And then the Austrians implemented a "budget version" of a high-speed train with their Railjet (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railjet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railjet) which uses an unmodified Taurus locomotive and a control car which has the same design as the locomotive.
dvh 3y ago
Not every. Draisine is missing: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draisine
- eesmith 3y ago
  The presenter clarified it was for unpowered cars pulled by a locomotive. A draisine does not fit that description.
- sitkack 3y ago
  This railbus is adorable! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rail_bus01.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rail_bus01.jpg
  - mschuster91 3y ago
    A bit larger and you can use these as legitimate standard trains, like this VT 98 from Germany [1]. Either you attach them at the rear of a regular train for longer distances and then separate it to serve a leg on some rural side track, or you attach a passenger car should you face higher demand on a day (e.g. popular tourist destinations), or you attach a freight car for express service to some industry along the tracks [2]. I seriously miss these things, there are so many rural railways that got shut down following the privatisation frenzy in the 90s, and could really be made to work again with a modern variant. [1] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Baureihe_798_752-2.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Baureihe_798_752-2.j... [2] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/DB-Baureihe_VT_98 https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/DB-Baureihe_VT_98
    - LargoLasskhyfv 3y ago
      Do you remember "Hält and jeder Milchkanne" (Stops at every milk can)? That's because they did that, which means they collected the aluminum cans of milk at the little stops, which farmers put there, and transported them to the city, or next dairy. Usually on a flatcar in tow, sometimes pigs, goats, sheep, cows too! But that stopped long before the 90ies. I guess that was over around 1975, or so.
    - 3y ago
jvolkman 3y ago
He's got a new video about rail shapes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nteyw40i9So https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nteyw40i9So
unethical_ban 3y ago
The presenter and the video are super-high-quality! This is the kind of content I expect to see from PBS or some 90s era Discovery channel show. The creator must be professionally trained, or just have a natural talent for education. Bravo!
- roelschroeven 3y ago
  The creator, Brady, is professionally trained as an engineer (and presumably works as an engineer too -- I don't think he's a full-time content creator), but as far as I know he's not trained as an educator. I think he just has a natural talent.
seatac76 3y ago
Love Brady’s work. I bought his book too. While I was hoping for a more coffee table type book, it is more dense than that but still a delightful read. Book Title: Engineering in Plain Sight.
watersb 3y ago
Nuclear Waste Transport rail car, nearly operational as of 21 September 2023: https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/new-railcar-designed-transport-spent-nuclear-fuel-completes-final-testing https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/new-railcar-designed-tran...
kepler1 3y ago
At what point do you realize that you've become one of those collectors of weird railroad information that isn't really useful but somehow interesting to know? And how do you realize it soon enough to catch yourself before you bore your friends with it?

142 points by zdw 3y ago

Main ones I see are hoppers and cattle cars. I live quite close to a railyard so it is interesting to see all the trains from a distance. There is no regular passenger services here so I rarely see passenger cars. Most of the freight is coal or grain. Heavy things are generally transported by roads since the mines and powerstations are not always near the rail line.

HankB99 3y ago
I live about 100 yards from the Union Pacific mail east/west line out of Chicago and we see a great variety of freight cars, but I cannot recall the last time I saw a stock car. I guess that's because the Chicago stock yards no longer exist except as a neighborhood. The only passenger cars this like carries are the Metra double-deckers (except for the very occasional heritage trail such as the Big Boy entourage.) Amtrak uses the BNSF rails a few miles from here.
jvolkman 3y ago
Is this in the US or elsewhere? I don't think livestock travels by rail in the US anymore, but autorack cars (that carry automobiles) look similar. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9c/ETTX_905721_20050529_IL_Rochelle.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9c/ETTX_905...
- richardjam73 3y ago
  Southern Queensland Australia.

throwaheyy 3y ago

Strangely no mention at all of EMUs, DMUs or single self-propelled rail cars. “Every train has a locomotive” is quite US-centric.

delta_p_delta_x 3y ago
I was about to point this out, too. This entire video is US-centric, which explains the dearth of passenger rail content. It completely skips many other types of passenger train. Many high-speed rail (Japanese Shinkansen, German ICE) and almost all rapid transit carriages are EMUs. Double-decker cars are significantly more common in continental Europe. The TGV regularly runs Duplex[1] carriages on the LGV Sud-Est (Paris-Lyon) route, and Swiss Federal Railways has IC2000, IR Double Decker, and the LD Double Decker. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TGV_Duplex https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TGV_Duplex
- mindslight 3y ago
  Please find or make similar videos for other parts of the world. As a USian that mostly knew about all the types of railcars in this video, that would be awesome.
- mschuster91 3y ago
  > Many high-speed rail (Japanese Shinkansen, German ICE) and almost all rapid transit carriages are EMUs. Nit pick: The German ICE 1 and 2 series are pulled/pushed by a locomotive [1] that's a direct evolution of the BR 120 locomotive - the world's first electric locomotive to use solid-state converters [2]. As a result of that, the trains have different top speeds depending on the locomotive being on the front (faster) or rear (slower) end [3]. [1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICE_1#Triebk%C3%B6pfe_(Baureihe_401) https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICE_1#Triebk%C3%B6pfe_(Baureih... [2] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/DB-Baureihe_120 https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/DB-Baureihe_120 [3] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICE_2#Betrieb_bei_Seitenwind https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICE_2#Betrieb_bei_Seitenwind
  - rob74 3y ago
    The ICE1 being the longer version with locomotives ("Triebköpfe", literally "driving heads") at both ends, while the ICE2 is only half as long, with only one locomotive, and two of them can be coupled - the restriction you mentioned only applies to these. ...but actually the ones to first use this configuration were the French with their TGV, which was then copied by the Germans and Italians for their respective high-speed trains (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/TGV#Allgemein https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/TGV#Allgemein). And then the Austrians implemented a "budget version" of a high-speed train with their Railjet (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railjet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railjet) which uses an unmodified Taurus locomotive and a control car which has the same design as the locomotive.

dvh 3y ago

Not every. Draisine is missing: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draisine

eesmith 3y ago
The presenter clarified it was for unpowered cars pulled by a locomotive. A draisine does not fit that description.
sitkack 3y ago
This railbus is adorable! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rail_bus01.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rail_bus01.jpg
- mschuster91 3y ago
  A bit larger and you can use these as legitimate standard trains, like this VT 98 from Germany [1]. Either you attach them at the rear of a regular train for longer distances and then separate it to serve a leg on some rural side track, or you attach a passenger car should you face higher demand on a day (e.g. popular tourist destinations), or you attach a freight car for express service to some industry along the tracks [2]. I seriously miss these things, there are so many rural railways that got shut down following the privatisation frenzy in the 90s, and could really be made to work again with a modern variant. [1] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Baureihe_798_752-2.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Baureihe_798_752-2.j... [2] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/DB-Baureihe_VT_98 https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/DB-Baureihe_VT_98
  - LargoLasskhyfv 3y ago
    Do you remember "Hält and jeder Milchkanne" (Stops at every milk can)? That's because they did that, which means they collected the aluminum cans of milk at the little stops, which farmers put there, and transported them to the city, or next dairy. Usually on a flatcar in tow, sometimes pigs, goats, sheep, cows too! But that stopped long before the 90ies. I guess that was over around 1975, or so.
  - 3y ago

jvolkman 3y ago

He's got a new video about rail shapes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nteyw40i9So https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nteyw40i9So

unethical_ban 3y ago

The presenter and the video are super-high-quality! This is the kind of content I expect to see from PBS or some 90s era Discovery channel show. The creator must be professionally trained, or just have a natural talent for education. Bravo!

roelschroeven 3y ago
The creator, Brady, is professionally trained as an engineer (and presumably works as an engineer too -- I don't think he's a full-time content creator), but as far as I know he's not trained as an educator. I think he just has a natural talent.

seatac76 3y ago

Love Brady’s work. I bought his book too. While I was hoping for a more coffee table type book, it is more dense than that but still a delightful read. Book Title: Engineering in Plain Sight.

watersb 3y ago

Nuclear Waste Transport rail car, nearly operational as of 21 September 2023: https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/new-railcar-designed-transport-spent-nuclear-fuel-completes-final-testing https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/new-railcar-designed-tran...

kepler1 3y ago

At what point do you realize that you've become one of those collectors of weird railroad information that isn't really useful but somehow interesting to know? And how do you realize it soon enough to catch yourself before you bore your friends with it?