Train

• 1. Introduction

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  The word train comes from Old French trahiner, which traces back to the Latin trahere, meaning to pull or to draw. That single idea, pulling a connected line of vehicles along a track, reshaped how people and goods move across land. A train is a series of connected vehicles that run along a railway track. Most ride on steel wheels over steel rails, and the low friction between them makes trains more efficient than almost any other way to travel overland. From a horse plodding along a mine wagonway to a magnetically levitated machine floating above its guideway, the form has changed almost beyond recognition. Yet the listener may wonder how a vehicle once pulled by horses came to outrun cars and compete with airplanes. Why did trains nearly vanish in the middle of the 20th century, only to be championed again decades later? And how does a single word for pulling now cover everything from a coal-hauling freight giant to a theme-park monorail?

• 2. From Horses To Steam

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  Babylon built the earliest known wagonways around 2,200 BCE, wheeled wagons running on stone tracks. Wagonways returned in the 1500s to haul material out of mines, and from the 1790s stronger iron rails replaced their weaker predecessors. In 1804 a steam locomotive built by British inventor Richard Trevithick powered the first ever steam train. Outside coal mines, where fuel was plentiful, steam stayed untested until the Stockton and Darlington Railway opened in 1825. British engineer George Stephenson ran a locomotive named Locomotion No. 1 on that 25 mile line, hauling over 400 passengers at up to 8 mph. The success of that machine, and of Stephenson's Rocket in 1829, convinced many of steam's value. Within a decade a stock market bubble known as Railway Mania spread across the United Kingdom. News crossed the Atlantic fast, and the first American steam railroad opened in 1829. American pioneers soon built their own locomotives, designed for the sharper curves and rougher track typical of their country. Most continental European nations opened their first railroads in the 1830s and 1840s, after a steam train first ran in France in late 1829. Imperial powers carried trains to South America, Africa, and Asia from the 1840s to tighten control of their colonies and move cargo for export. Japan, never colonized, saw its first railroads in the early 1870s. By 1900 trains ran on every continent except uninhabited Antarctica.

• 3. Beyond The Boiler

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  Werner von Siemens built the first train powered by electricity in 1879, then went on to pioneer electric trams. A second German inventor, Rudolf Diesel, constructed the first diesel engine in the 1890s, though its power to move trains went unrealized for decades. Between 1897 and 1903, tests on the Royal Prussian Military Railway in Germany showed electric locomotives were viable, setting speed records above 100 mph. Gas powered doodlebug railcars entered service in the first decade of the 1900s, self-propelled and ready to carry passengers on lighter routes. Experiments with diesel and gas power led to the German Flying Hamburger in 1933 and the influential American EMD FT in 1939. These diesels proved cheaper to run, easier to maintain, and more reliable than steam. Italy, lacking significant coal reserves, instead built an extensive electric network in the first decades of the 20th century. That choice foreshadowed a wider split between nations that would electrify and those that would turn to diesel.

• 4. The Great Decline

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  World War II wrecked railroads across Europe, Asia, and Africa, and after the war ended in 1945 the rebuilding began. Nations used Marshall Plan funds, or aid from the USSR and Comecon behind the Iron Curtain, to convert their trains to diesel or electric power. France, Russia, Switzerland, and Japan led in adopting electrified railroads, while others focused on dieselization. By 1980 most of the world's steam locomotives had retired, though a few held on in Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America. China, rich in coal, dieselized last; steam still hauled mainline trains in Inner Mongolia as late as 2005. Competition from automobiles and freight trucks began in the 1930s and intensified after the war. Air transport then arrived as a rival for passenger trains, and traffic shifted away in large amounts. Service declined for both freight and passengers, and many rail lines were abandoned. The spread of buses closed many rapid transit and tram systems too. Yet a new development in the 1960s pointed the other way: high-speed rail, running on dedicated rights of way at 150 mph or greater.

• 5. The Efficient Revival

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  The International Energy Agency states that, on average, rail requires 12 times less energy and emits 7 to 11 times less greenhouse gases per passenger-kilometer than private vehicles and airplanes. That makes it the most efficient mode of motorized passenger transport. Since the 1970s, governments, environmentalists, and train advocates have promoted greater use of trains for exactly these reasons. The first high-speed service was the Japanese Shinkansen, which entered service in 1964. High-speed networks then spread across much of Europe and East Asia, with the French TGV and German Intercity Express becoming competitive with airlines over short to medium distances. The first high-speed train in the Americas was Amtrak's Acela, which entered service in 2000. Commuter rail has grown since the 1970s as an alternative to congested highways, and light rail has spread in the 21st century. Intermodal freight trains carrying double-stack shipping containers have, since the 1970s, won market share back from trucks. In the United States as of 2008, railroads moved a ton of freight 436 miles on a single gallon of fuel, four times the efficiency of trucks.

• 6. Anatomy Of A Train

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  Bogies, known in North America as trucks, support the wheels and axles, ranging from a single axle to four or more. Two-axle bogies are the most common worldwide because they soften track irregularities and distribute heavy loads well. Couplers link the vehicles together, with buffers and chain couplers common in much of Europe, India, and South America. Knuckle couplers dominate the rest of the world, while Scharfenberg couplers are common on multiple units everywhere. Since 1869, George Westinghouse's automatic air brake has been nearly universal, using compressed air in a continuous train pipe to apply brakes across all cars at once. Before it, brakemen rode in brakeman's cabins or atop cars, turning brake wheels by hand on downhill grades. For warning, trains carry horns and bells as mandatory audible devices, and steam locomotives traditionally sound steam whistles instead of air horns. Standard gauge, defined as 4 feet 8.5 inches between the rails, is the most common in the world, though broad-gauge and narrow-gauge track also exist. Where trains of different gauges meet, the result is called a break of gauge. Trains must also fit within the loading gauge profile so they do not foul bridges and lineside structures.

• 7. A Family Of Forms

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  Russia's Trans-Siberian Railway, running 5772 miles between Moscow and Vladivostok, is the longest passenger service in the world. Long-distance trains like it may take days, stopping at dozens of stations, and for many rural communities they are the only public transport available. Short-distance and regional trains run far more often, with travel times measured in hours or even minutes, and those built for commuters are called commuter rail. High-speed trains generally start at 200 km/h and cruise as high as 355 km/h, usually on their own separate tracks. Between conventional and high-speed sit higher speed trains, including the Northeast Regional in the United States, the Gatimaan Express in India, and the KTM ETS in Malaysia. In cities, rapid transit runs in tunnels, on viaducts, or at surface level, and goes by subway, underground, metro, or heavy rail. Trams, called streetcars in North America, emerged in the USA in the 1830s and grew popular in Europe from the 1860s. Light rail, a term coined in the USA in 1972, had grown to over 400 systems worldwide by 2021. Specialized forms push the definition further still. The suspended Schwebebahn in Wuppertal has carried passengers since 1901, the Reisszug funicular opened around 1500, and the Shanghai maglev, opened in 2002, runs up to 431 km/h. Japan's L0 Series maglev holds the record for the fastest train ever, with a top speed of 374.7 mph.

• 8. Tracks Through Culture

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  Fast travel collapsed journeys that once took days into a matter of hours, and the transport of freight and passengers became far cheaper. Towns along the lines grew in importance, while those bypassed declined or became ghost towns. Chicago rose to prominence as a place where multiple train lines met. In the United States, the first transcontinental railroad played a major role in settling the western part of the nation by non-indigenous migrants. The Trans-Siberian Railway did something similar, connecting Russia from east to west and making travel across frozen Siberia possible. Safety improved as the technology matured. Between 2000 and 2009 in the United States, train travel averaged 0.43 deaths per billion passenger miles, far below the 7.28 of car travel. Yet danger remains. The Lac-Megantic rail disaster in Canada in 2013 killed 47 people and leveled much of the town. Over 90 percent of train-related deaths come from trespassing on tracks or collisions at level crossings, which is why groups like Operation Lifesaver work to teach motorists to yield. A train cannot stop quickly: even an emergency brake at speed may need more than a mile to halt, a fact that still shapes every crossing sign along the line.