Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of Graph Search.
Concept
Passenger train
Summary
A passenger train is a train used to transport people along a railroad line. These trains may consist of unpowered passenger railroad cars (also known as coaches or carriages) hauled by one or more locomotives, or may be self-propelled; self propelled passenger trains are known as multiple units or railcars. Passenger trains stop at stations or depots, where passengers may board and disembark. In most cases, passenger trains operate on a fixed schedule and have priority over freight trains.
Passenger trains may be made up of a number of passenger cars hauled by one or more locomotives, or may be made up of self-propelled railcars. Car design and the general safety of passenger trains have dramatically evolved over time, making travel by rail remarkably safe. Some passenger trains, both long-distance and short-distance, use bi-level (double-decker) cars to carry more passengers per train. Passenger trains hauled by locomotives are more expensive to operate than multiple units, but have a higher passenger capacity.
Many prestigious passenger train services have been bestowed a special name, some of which have become famous in literature and fiction.
The first occasion on which a railway locomotive pulled a train carrying passengers was in 1804 at Penydarren Ironworks in Wales, when 70 employees of the ironworks were transported 9 miles by an engine designed by Richard Trevithick. In 1808, Trevithick ran a passenger-carrying exhibition train called Catch Me Who Can on a small loop of track in London. The exhibition, which ran for two weeks, charged passengers for rides. The first passenger train in regular service was a horse drawn train on the Swansea and Mumbles Railway.
The first steam train carrying passengers on a public railway was hauled by Locomotion No. 1 on the Stockton and Darlington Railway in 1825, traveling at speeds up to 15 miles per hour.
Travel by passenger trains in the United States began in the 1830s and became popular in the 1850s and '60s. The first electric passenger train was exhibited at the Berlin Industrial Exposition 1879.
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.