What other items in the world run on rails that are not trains? Cranes. Rocket powered car. Giant satellite dishes owned by the government.
Transfer tables in a railroad backshop.
Bad guys covered with tar and feathers…
Overhead cranes
Gantry cranes
some Drydocks (shipbuilding)
piledrivers
tunnel boring machines
Turntables
Several boats / ships at Disney World
Movie camera units on site filming a “movie”.
All kinds of amusement rides…Example: Roller Coaster
Large sliding doors such as industrial buildings…barns, etc…
Something older, such as an overhead hay fork {running on an overhead rail}, used to unload hay in a barn from a wagon, before the days of bailing into bundles.
More generally - “marine railways” - used to lift boats & small ships out of and back into the water.
In manufacturing, some machines/ equipment on an assembly line are mounted on rails to make it easier to move them out of the way, and/ or in warehouses, to move the goods further along the line, etc.
Turntables
More generally, “locomotive” cranes = a self-propelled crane. One place I worked at Perryman, MD has the outriggers on its 4 locomotive cranes - ranging from 50 to 150 tons capacity, as I recall - permanently set out and small wheels under them to run on 4 “outrigger rails”, 2 rails on each side, because the outriggers are not all the same distance out.
Some bridges, during construction - “Roll out the old, roll in the new” on temporary rails set on the piers, etc. Likewise, some buildings if they are being moved.
Roller coasters ?
- Paul North.
dryer carts in a dye factory
camera cart on a movie set
sides of beef in cold storage (overhead monorail)
automobiles, trucks, etc on the assembly line
large artillary guns
[:-^] Would those little suv’s with rail wheels that carry inspectors qualify ?? Or track speeders ??
How abstract do we want to go with this? Camera dolly tracks have been mentioned, but what about '70s style Home Track Lighting (which admitted hangs down, but kind of fits). Actually lots of moving mechanical items have tracks of some sort, including the DVD & CD trays on your computers. Remember, rails/tracks/guideways don’t have to be horizontal (e.g. Elevators).
However, I will admit ‘tracks’ of this type is probably cheating from the OP’s viewpoint.
Now, going to what we would consider rail-tracks (horizontal), I see that equipment in large factories/warehouses has been mentioned, but I see a similar concept at several Home Depots around me, where the (large) carpet cutting machine runs on a single guide rail (the other side is supported by rollers on the concrete floor), so employees can position the cutter in front of the carpet roll to cut lengths from. What I found interesting is there seems to be no ‘track bumper’ to prevent the employees from pushing the maching off the end of the track/guide-rail (more or less a half-pipe), and it looks to be a pain to get it back on.
And could we not consider roller-coasters (at least the old style traditional ones, not the suspended, spinning loop Viper types) to meet the definition of a rail-train: a series of ‘cars’ coupled together and traveling along a fixed metal guideway?
From the book “Wonders & Curiosities of the Railway,” by William Kennedy, CR 1884:
"But certainly, in respect of smooth and noiseless movement and general comfort, the elevator (or ‘vertical railway,’ as its inventor called it) leads all the rest.
Back in the '40’s in Honduras, I remember seeing a three-wheeled bicycle on rails. It had two wheels on one rail and one on the opposite rail. Has anyone else seen anything like this? Was I dreaming?
The Panama Canal “mules” also run on rails.
Track departments all over have them for signal people playing with bond wires…more of a minibike with a sidecar …they still have them for sale in inventory…
Thanks, mudchicken, for your reply. I have never seen one since the '40’s, and am surprised that they are still in use.
try Rollercoasters. they’re kinda on rails.
…Overhead Household garage door is supported / moves on rails.
You know…this stuff can be endless…Stats need to be more restricted to what we’re limited to. Another: Even sliding doors on many household closets…or Patio doors, and on and on…Our 3 door freezer / ref. bottom freezer drawer…moves on “rails”…
about the Company named INTERLOK? @ the following link
http://www.interlok.info/Draisinene.htm
Might also Google DRAISINE and that wlll bring up a number of links:
You might foind this video interesting has some manual track vehicles shown towards end:
http://pila.interlok.info/index.htm
WARNING: In german language!
Yeah, I also mentioned things like that in my earlier post in this thread, although I used ‘Track Lighting’ and DVD trays, but realized that I was really stretching it and admitted in my post that including ‘tracked’ stuff like that is Cheating in regards to the OP.
What the OP seems to want is stuff that runs on what we would consider fixed metal (or wood or stone, I guess) guideways (not trackways), and a lot of that has been mentioned, such as:
Cranes
Large Industrial equipment, either in factories and warehouses or retail centers
Mine trams, and actually all manner of other trams/carts whether used in warehouses or industrial complexes or docks or large farms etc. (these were especially common before fork-lifts and other such material handling systems superceded them)
Various amusement park rides
Marine railways
Camera dollys
Rocket test sleds (single rail fixed guideway, with the sled mounted on the guideway - the Mythbusters have used this for their ‘SnowPlow bisecting a Car’ episode, but this would NOT include trackways which guide the cables used to pull vehicles along test roads - which the Mythbusters have also used).
The OP would seem to preclude Elevators and the like (or maybe not)
Also would seem to preclude various material handling systems like roller conveyors, bucket elevators (buckets running on rails pulled by a chain to the top of a coal elevator, for example); tracks used around t
Aircraft hanger doors
Those are the type of rails that Abe Lincoln used to split for fences.