A train is a connected series of rail vehicles propelled along a track (or "permanent way") to transport cargo or passengers.
Motive power is provided by a separate locomotive or individual motors in self-propelled multiple units. Although historically steam propulsion dominated, the most common modern forms are diesel and electric locomotives, the latter supplied by overhead wires or additional rails. Other energy sources include horses, rope or wire, gravity, pneumatics, batteries, and gas turbines.
Train tracks usually consists of two, three or four rails, with limited monorails and maglev guideways in the mix.
The word 'train' comes from the Old French trahiner, from the Latin trahere 'pull, draw'.
Read more about Train: Types of Trains, Bogies, Motive Power, Passenger Trains, Freight Trains, Trains in Popular Culture
Famous quotes containing the word train:
“Every philosophy is tinged with the colouring of some secret imaginative background, which never emerges explicitly into its train of reasoning.”
—Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947)
“Still, I am prepared for this voyage, and for anything else you may care to mention.
Not that I am not afraid, but there is very little time left.
You have probably made travel arrangements, and know the feeling.
Suddenly, one morning, the little train arrives in the station, but oh, so big
It is! Much bigger and faster than anyone told you.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“If we train our conscience, it kisses us as it bites.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)