Railway Defender!!!

We have a system similar to that in Australia called "Hy-Rail" - (highway/rail). I haven't seen a Defender, but sadly only LandCruisers. In Queensland where the gauge is only 3'6" they use Suzuki Sierras and such like with narrower track.

The flange wheels are just for guidance so it doesn't drop of the rails, the traction is via the rubber tyres contacting the railheads.

There was an article a few years back in LRO about the British ones.

Regards Scott

We have a Unimog at work that goes on the rails. I think the set up is the same as the Defender ones.

Thanks folks, interesting. I had heard about the drive being accomplished by the conventional tyres on some conversions . I did not get a long enough look but it looked that the flanged wheels might have had some sort of drive mechanism. They were quite substantial. I may well have been mistaken however.

On or around Mon, 7 Jun 2004 14:15:24 +0000 (UTC), "Chris Lloyd" enlightened us thusly:

there have been articles about 'em. The flanged wheels are for guidance, and the drive goes through the rubber. Ages ago, there were some Series Is with rail wheels on, though maybe not in this country.

the modern ones have train lights and are limited (in theory) to 20 mph when on tracks, presumably for saftey reasons - I assume they brake through the rubber/rail interface too, which might limit yer braking a bit.

Here in Central NSW the Rail Infrastructure Corporation has several double cab 130s fitted with railway wheels, although most of their fleet is Landcruisers. Presumably using Landrovers because Toyota do not make a comparable double cab vehicle. I see them regularly, but have never had a close look - usually we are going in opposite directions at 100kph. JD

One goes past my signal box several days of the week. It is call a Hi-Rail vehicle and, in this case it is used for track inspections. Some of the signal electricians have them too.

It is a Td5 Defender 130. The driver and his mate hate it. They previously had a Toyota 75 series 4.2 litre diesel Land Cruiser. But they do admit the Defender is far better riding on the dirt access tracks than the lef sprung Toyota.

If anyone is interested, I could always take some pix and post them on my website.

Ron Signaller, Katoomba Signal Box Australia

Ron, it is a small world. I am an ex signal electrician from the SRA Southern Region (Goulburn to Albury it was, based in Coota). I guess it's all changed now, and I haven't been back since moving home to QLD in 1989, althought the Digest keeps me informed to some degree.

Regards Scott

Is that the thing with the laser scanners for checking track/tunnel integrity?

Saw something about them (Derby based lot, IIRC) whilst out in Malaysia a couple of months back.

Peter

On or around Thu, 10 Jun 2004 11:04:23 +0100, "Ploggo" enlightened us thusly:

and a damned sight earlier than that, too. they did 126 with Mallard much earlier than that. Admittedly, that was a one-off.

but yeah, the intercity 125 was hitting 125 mph (not much of the time, admittedly) a long time back now. Mind you, most of the track on which they did 125 was Brunel's Great Western between London and Bristol, which was laid out to be a decent bit of track in the first place, with few curves and no sharp gradients.

The UK (or England at least) has the advantage that much of the main line track was laid out in the 1830's and 1840's before railway engineers realised that trains could go round much tighter corners and over steeper hills than they had thought. Most of the rest of the world had their main lines built in the next few decades - by the British engineers who had learnt from their experience in England and found they did not need to use as high a standards.

In slightly a related matter here in NSW the State owned railways have made the bizarre decision to reduce the maximum allowed speed of long distance passenger trains from 160kph to 140kph in response to a fatal accident a few weeks ago where a rail motor (probably travelling about 100kph) hit a car on an unprotected (stop sign only) level crossing. There is only one section of track that allows a speed above 140kph (on the main Sydney - Melbourne line) - and this is nowhere near where the accident was! I believe the line where the accident occurred has a maximum anywhere on it of 100kph. JD