Micheline

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Michelines were a series of rubber-tyred trains developed in France in the 1930s by various rail companies and rubber-tyre manufacturer Michelin. Some Michelines were built in the US by the Budd Company.

Most Michelines were self-propelled, but a number of locomotive-hauled trainsets were also produced.

Michelines offered unprecedented ride smoothness, but they soon proved to be problematic because the low load wheels could bear limited the railcar sizes and demanded a high number of tyres (up to 20 per car) to be able to carry the load. And they were subject to flat tyres, unlike cars with steel wheels.

Eventually, the Michelines gave way to rubber-tyred subways, pioneered by the RATP (Paris transit authority) which introduced them for their superior acceleration characteristics, in order to increase the capacity of their subway lines.

However, as time went by, the extra complexity of rubber-tyred rolling stock meant that they were leapfrogged by conventional steel wheel rolling stock, and nowadays, rubber-tyred subway systems are an oddity, only perpetuated by legacy compatibility requirements and French technological politicking.