Draisine

This article is about auxiliary railcars regardless of propulsion. For the original form powered by foot, see dandy horse.
Two-person rail-cycle draisine with four wheels, for leisure.

A draisine (English: /dreɪˈziːn/) is a light auxiliary rail vehicle, driven by service personnel, equipped to transport crew and material necessary for the maintenance of railway infrastructure.

The eponymous term is derived from the German inventor Baron Karl Drais, who invented his Laufmaschine (German for "running machine") in 1817, which was called Draisine in German (vélocipède or draisienne in French) by the press. It is the first reliable claim for a practically used precursor to the bicycle, basically the first commercially successful two-wheeled, steerable, human-propelled machine, nicknamed hobby-horse or dandy horse.[1]

Drais's dandy horse, called Draisine in German, whose name was inherited by the rail vehicle. (drawing published in 1817.)

Later, the name draisine came to be applied only to the invention used on rails and was extended to similar vehicles, even when not human-powered. Because of their low weight and small size, they can be put on and taken off the rails at any place, allowing trains to pass.

In the United States, motor-powered draisines are known as speeders while human-powered ones are referred as handcars. Vehicles that can be driven on both the highway and the rail line are called road–rail vehicles, or (after a trademark) Hy-Rails.

  1. ^ "From Draisienne to Dandyhorse". Canada Science and Technology Museum. Archived from the original on 5 February 2012. Retrieved 16 August 2013.