What is a train?

[Pit_buzzer]

Train of thought..
Bridal train...
We're all taking it for granted that what we mean is a railway train but if a child doesn't know what train means aren't we maybe starting in the wrong place

 

[alistairlees]

In this day and age just ask them to google it!

Looks like that's what one poster did earlier, without admitting it.

 

[Roast Veg]

A MU is a powered unit that can operate in multiple, isn't it? So a 153 is, but an HST isn't?

A 4TC is a MU and is unpowered. A class 66 is powered and can operate in multiple, but isn't a MU.

 

[Annetts key]

A 4TC is a MU and is unpowered. A class 66 is powered and can operate in multiple, but isn't a MU.

So what you are really trying to say is that anything that can be coupled together is a MU? After all, a class 66 can have a passenger in the rear cab, can it not (although not likely to be a ordinary member of the public)?

 

[Roast Veg]

So what you are really trying to say is that anything that can be coupled together is a MU? After all, a class 66 can have a passenger in the rear cab, cannot not (although not likely to be a ordinary member of the public)?

I'm saying nothing in particular, only that it isn't a "powered unit that can operate in multiple"!

Remember also that a multiple unit can have no passengers at all, like the 325s.

 

[king_walnut]

This thread is utterly exhausting. Genuinely cringeworthy.

It's simple. A train is like a really massive bus except it has metal wheels and runs on rails.

"But that could be said about trams!!"

A tram is like a huge bus except it runs on rails that are embedded into a road.


Just show the children some pictures or videos. They're kids, not hardened trainspotting veterans.

 

[Annetts key]

This thread is utterly exhausting. Genuinely cringeworthy.

It's simple. A train is like a really massive bus except it has metal wheels and runs on rails.

"But that could be said about trams!!"

A tram is like a huge bus except it runs on rails that are embedded into a road.


Just show the children some pictures or videos. They're kids, not hardened trainspotting veterans.

Or, a bus is like a train, but it runs on a road not track

 

[Mcq]

Train is what teachers do when describing a line of similar objects e.g.camels

 

[noddingdonkey]

The younger kids would surely have a certain blue tank engine and his friends as a point of reference?

 

[billio]

A suitable general definition is: a train (on a conventional railway) is a series of connected railway carriages or wagons moved by a locomotive or by using built in (integral) motors.

...

Or gravity such as Ffestiniog slate trains.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Train: 1. An absolutely atrocious American "rock" group.
2: Yorkshire precipitation.

 

[2192]

And "drive" used to mean to herd one or more animals in front of one, including controlling one or more horses when seated behind on a cart. I'm not sure where that leaves driving a train...

1. Most of a steam loco is in front of the driver.
2. A privatised railway manager said "A train is anything profitable behind a loco."

 

[Efini92]

Here’s how the railway define it.

 

[etr221]

Here’s how the railway define it. "This includes..."

Only in part: while that 'includes' certain things (which do need to be stated to avoid doubt), there are others which are, but are not stated there.

I would always be wary of such definitions (in rule books and the like): they tend to have a specific legal reason for being written as they are, and with the limits they have.

The ROGS regulation gives: '"train" includes any rolling stock' - and points to Railways Act 1993 for '“rolling stock” means any carriage, wagon or other vehicle used on track and includes a locomotive'

Alternatively, the Railways Act 1993 gives:
“train” means—
(a) two or more items of rolling stock coupled together, at least one of which is a locomotive; or
(b) a locomotive not coupled to any other rolling stock;

and (in case you were wondering): "locomotive” means any railway vehicle which has the capacity for self-propulsion (whether or not the power by which it operates is derived from a source external to the vehicle);

The American Standard Code of Rules gives (or did) "One or more locomotives, with or without cars, displaying markers" [the significance of the last is that it has a presence within the operation of the railway; which the 1993 Railways Act definition doesn't have - does this matter?]

While thes are fine in their place, they don't quite match my (un)common sense

I am left wondering about Festiniog Railway gravity trains: does gravity provide 'capacity for self-propulsion'? Is a horse a locomotive (or can it be)?

 

[Mat17]

I think there would be a lot of tumbleweed stares going across the classroom if even half of these definitions were presented to the children.

This forum really doesn't do simplification or generalisation does it? Lol.

 

[Penmorfa]

What is a train? Simple, something that goes to a train station

 

[61653 HTAFC]

What is a train? Simple, something that goes to a train station

Very brave...

 

[Ambient Sheep]

Heh, indeed.

Which is why this has always baffled me...

 

[Mat17]

What is a train? Simple, something that goes to a train station

LOL!

I've always called it the train station, so did my parents and grandparents come to that. I really don't get the issue some people have with it.

 

[krus_aragon]

Train of thought..
Bridal train...
We're all taking it for granted that what we mean is a railway train but if a child doesn't know what train means aren't we maybe starting in the wrong place

Incidentally, the old (Victorian) Welsh term for a train was "cerbydres" (from "cerbyd", "rhes"), literally a row of carriages/vehicles.

(That term is antiquated now, everyone uses the Cambricisation "trên" .)

 

[rower40]

(Signaller hat on)
I don't care what it is, as long as it obeys my signals and operates my track circuits/axle counters.

 

[87electric]

The ambiguity of light rail, tram, metro or tram-train still drives me nuts.

 

[65477]

Well 51 posts in this thread and of those I think three actually provide a possible to answer to my question and the title of this thread. There are few others that have added useful clarification.

To me the key elements are (I have taken the first post to mention something, so thanks and apologies to anyone who also gave the same answer):

a train is a just vehicle, much like a bus or a lorry, but that only travels on metal tracks instead of roads. They can only go where the tracks go and are normally used for transporting lots of people of lots of stuff over quite a long way.

Trains are like buses but on a track to take people to places quickly.

You start with what the children know and move on from there.

This then takes you onto the key difference between road vehicles and trains

trains don't have steering wheels, as they are guided by the rails

you can then move onto the main types of providing power, and I must remember to add in gravity, ropes and horses to my list of power sources.

 

[Highlandspring]

(Signaller hat on)
I don't care what it is, as long as it obeys my signals and operates my track circuits/axle counters.

That tends towards the old signalman’s joke that a train is really only a convenient means of moving a tail lamp from one end of a block section to the other.

 

[Bluejays]

Surely it would just be a case of. Car has tires and steering wheel, drives on road. Train has metal wheels, no steering wheel, goes on track.

 

[Essan]

I was going to say that a train is simply a type of vehicle that runs along a railway line.

Then I remembered I had seen a landrover and lorry running along a railway line ....!

 

[Ken H]

... Then I remembered I had seen a landrover and lorry running along a railway line ....!

but were they a train?

 

[nw1]

I never went on a train until I was 16, (in 1978).

I didn't realise there was such a beast as a DMU and was horrified at the lack of a loco!

I was thinking that at least a 37 would be employed, (it was a 104).

I do remember aged 11 that I was - briefly - surprised when I learnt that HSTs were not used on the WCML. I think I had somehow assumed that *all* UK top-grade (out of London) inter-city services in the early 80s were formed of HSTs, because they had a good deal of publicity and that they were "the" inter-city train. I first found out otherwise when using an XC from Guildford to Stafford and experiencing the WCML for the first time.

I'd understood the difference between multiple-units and loco-hauled earlier than that, though (but again aged 11, as that is the first time I regularly used railways - in my case, on an EMU-dominated line).

I don't think I knew at that time that HSTs were diesel-only - probably didn't even think about it to be honest. Suffice to say, receiving the "British Railways" book (Geoffrey Freeman Allan, I think) cleared up a lot of my misconceptions about the railway.

 

[Siemens Trains]

How many 11 year olds don't know what a train is? I would suggest they have bigger problems than an exact definition if they haven't learned what a train is by that age.

They may have spent their entire lives using rail replacement bus services.
Some buses go around displaying "Choo Choo, I'm a Train" text on the destination blind. If that's how they wish to identify then who are we to judge?

Another question that tends to catch me out is asking how much a train costs. I usually speculate at about £1 million. Maybe something like £200k per carriage is loosely imaginable in terms of motor car or bus retail price. Whether accurate or not I have no idea.

 

[Annetts key]

The trouble is humans like to be imprecise. And reuse words, names, expressions by including variations into the meaning.

Originally, a train was a rake of wagons pulled or pushed. The method of pulling or pushing depending on what ‘power source’ was available. Be it people pushing, a horse or pony pulling, or a steam engine either pulling via a rope/line/cable or built as a locomotive. Some systems used gravity in one direction.

When the first proper passenger services and long distance freight trains started to run, the vast majority used a locomotive coupled to a number of carriages or wagons (or both). Hence the normal meaning of a train became “locomotive and a train of carriages or wagons”. The locomotive on it’s own not being a train.

Since then advances in technology have rather blurred things. The first self propelled carriages had a steam engine on board and they did not need a separate locomotive.

But the big change happened when electric motors or diesel engines were included in carriages. These became known as EMU and DMU. Originally intended for lightly used likes like branch lines, now nearly all new passenger trains are effectively EMU, DMU or bi-mode MU that can use both an external electric supply or the on board diesel engines.

In addition, the railways of the world have developed over time special engineering vehicles. The configuration of these varies widely. But typically they are self powered units.

These specialist engineering vehicles are however expensive. So ‘road’ vehicles have been adapted to travel on rails, hence now there is a class of road/rail vehicles. This includes hydraulic excavators (JCB / 360° rotation) type machines, dumper trucks, Land Rover ‘cars’, some types of road trucks, and powered trolleys (used for track inspection).

So the simplest definition of what is a train to a lay person is: “One or more vehicles that are connected together that travel on metal rails”.

For anything more complex I refer people to the following (almost universal) statement: there is the right way, the wrong way and the railway…

What is a train? Simple, something that goes to a train station

So, just to be pedantic, do you take your car to a car station? Do aircraft land and take off at an aircraft station? Do ships dock at a ship station? English is a bit special in that we like to be a bit random in some of our usage of combinations of words.

The normal usage in the U.K. (where railway as we know them were apparently invented) is that stations are called railway stations because the railway lines pass through or end at this place. Station on its own meaning ‘specified place’. Trains only briefly visit stations. Whereas the rails are permanent.

People often use the argument about bus stations. But originally busses were normally based at the bus station.

Of course informally train station is fine, and in some countries train station is the more common usage.

I was going to say that a train is simply a type of vehicle that runs along a railway line.

Then I remembered I had seen a landrover and lorry running along a railway line ....!

I’ve been on a road/rail Land Rover

but were they a train?

As far as the mainland U.K. railways are concerned, as they are not reliably able to operate the train detection systems and don’t comply with various other regulations, no they are not classed as a train and are not permitted to operate outside of an engineering possession. Inside an engineering possession, they are classed as on-track vehicles. Although some on-track vehicles (including powered trolleys) can have one or more trailers attached. So in layman’s terms they are a train!

Are you confused yet!?!

if yes, remember there is the right way, the wrong way and the railway…