Self Propelled Railcars; General

Hi All,

There are many types of self propelled railcars. Probably most of them do not carry passengers. The one that comes to mind almost immediately is a self propelled railroad crane or derrick. Some are used to lift things and others are used for digging. Usually they also have outriggers that allow them to spread out the load, and prevent tipping over.

pennsy wrote:There are many types of self propelled railcars. Probably most of them do not carry passengers.

While you are certainly correct in the technical sense, I have always taken this forum to be targeted to non-electric (no catenary overhead, third rail, or other outside power source), passenger carrying units (like the RDC, the SPV2000, Gas-Electric 'DoodleBugs', a multitude of passenger DMUs from Europe and Asia, even the NJ Riverline units.

Everything else, from Track Geometry Units (Sperry or later) to MOW (tampers, tie pullers, ballast cleaners, etc.), mules and self-propelled cranes, trackmobiles, hi-rail, even Speeders (which in a sense do haul passengers, but really weren't designed for revenue service) sort of gets dumped in the 'General Discussion: Locomotives, Rolling Stock, and Equipment' forum.

But, I guess the revenue passenger service requirement is really only implied, so you are correct...

Mof W equipment is not considered a DMU but a track car, just like Hi-rail. Burro crane, Ballast regulator, Sperry car etc those are not trains but just track cars and fall under different rules.

For another conceptual DMU I posted this on LIRR site:
Bombardier designed a diesel version of the M-7 for Triangle transportation but they decided to order from ROTEM .
The Conceptual diesel M-7 was a centerdoor car with low level type doors at end vestibules, the propulsion was a Diesel electric AC proplulsion plant.