Draisine

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A draisine primarily refers to a light auxiliary rail vehicle or trolley.

Drais' Laufmaschine 1817
Drais' Laufmaschine 1817

The eponymous term is derived from German Baron Karl Christian Ludwig Drais von Sauerbronn, who invented his Laufmaschine (German for "running machine") in 1817, that was called Draisine (English) or draisienne (French) by the press. It is the first reliable claim for a practically-used bicycle, basically the first commercially successful two-wheeled, steerable, human-propelled machine commonly called a velocipede, nick-named hobby-horse or dandy horse.[1]

Rail-cycle with 4 wheels
Rail-cycle with 4 wheels

Later, the name draisine, came to be applied only to versions used on rails and was extended to similar vehicles, even when not human powered.

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Draisine is spelled dressin in Sweden and dresin in Norway. In Finland the word is "resiina". Usually, dressin refers to pedal-powered rail-cycles which were used by railroad maintenance workers in Finland, Sweden and Norway until about 1950.

Now dressins are used for recreation on several unused raillines in Sweden, Norway and some other northern European countries. There are several companies renting dressins in Sweden.

In Finland there has been annual competition "Resiina-ralli" (translates "Draisine Rally"), which involves several draisine teams traveling many days in the railroads from one corner of the country to another. The rally is televised and gathers great popularity among TV-viewers.

During the Second World War, armoured draisines were used in the Invasion of Poland. They were typically tanks or tankettes adapted with rail wheels and used as reconnaissance elements in advance of armoured trains.

Polish World War II TKS tankette dresine
Polish World War II TKS tankette dresine
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See also: railcar

  • A useful short article on draisine transport on railways in Europe appears in the September 2006 of hidden europe magazine. The full reference is Gardner, N. (2006) Muscle Power - Draisine Travel. In hidden europe, 10, pp.41-44


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