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"FUNICULARS, AERIAL CABLE CARS,
COGWHEEL RAILROADS" Page 1, 2
ABOVE: A train of the Gornergrat cogwheel
railway in Zermatt, Switzerland. The toothed center rail meshes with horizontal
gears on the electric locomotive.
Cogwheel railroads
A cogwheel, rack-and-pinon, or rack railway is similar to
a conventional railroad, except that the locomotives or self-propelled railcars
are equipped with horizontal gears. These gears mesh with a toothed rail between
the ordinary rails, providing traction on slopes that are too steep for
propulsion via conventional adhesion (wheel against rail).
Often, mountain railways use cogwheel or rack-and-pinion
propulsion only on sections that require the extra traction. If you're traveling
on such a railroad, you'll sense the change to cogwheel propulsion when the
train stops and the engineer or engine driver engages the cogwheel.
Web links
Travel
Planner: Mountain Transportation
switzerlandforvisitors.com
This page from the Transportation
section of my Switzerland & Austria
Travel Planner has links to articles and Web sites for funiculars, aerial
cable cars, and cogwheel railroads.
>> Page 1, 2
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