It may seem a bit of a silly question for this forum but I’ve tried elsewhere
for an answer to no avail. What are Spine Cars called in French? There must be a French
Canadian on the forum who knows the correct name in French.
Hans
Oh, boy… I’m going to get flamed BIG TIME for this…
History (post-Napolean) has shown us that the French HAVE NO SPINE (cars)!!![:o)]
Sorry, I just couldn’t resist! I hope someone can answer your question for real!
Hans,
I am sorry but I do not know what a spine car is in English. But I am not a North American. Do you have a photo of what it is?
You aren’t talking about the old Clejan cars, are you? The New Haven bought American-ized versions back in the mid-1950’s. They were essentially two I-beams that the trailers rolled on by way of special dolly wheels attached to the trailer axle and landing gear. I heard they were successful in France, but certainly less so here in the States due to the invention of the ACF hitch.
Paul A. Cutler III
Weather Or No Go New Haven
Paul,
As far as I know these or similar cars were never used in Europe but only in North America But since US and Canadian railroads operate substantially crossborder I assume that the French Canadians have a name for them.
Hans
Not every word in French Canada was converted to French, a great amount of Anglo words were used in the original English form and were never translated (as we do with French words), with the resurgence of French Canadian pride, committees were set up to abolish English words entrenched in the French language, even they met words they could not translate and the English word was used. Hopefully someone can translate spine cars to English (Franglish ? ?) but do not be surprised if it cannot.
Using the Alta Vista translator website, “spine car” translates in French to
“voiture d’épine”. This is a literal translation, so I don’t know if it would be correct.
Bob Boudreau
(yes I speak French too!) [D)]
You know what?I’m a french canadian modeler and don’t have the slightest idea what a spine car should be called in french,but I’ll have this answer for you guys in a day or two.There are more proficient members at the club who probably do know,that is if there is a translation to start with.Definitely,you can erase “voiture d’épine” from your railroad dictionary as I’ve never heard that term at the club,even from the non-bilingual members who,by the way,use the english terms all the time.
Hans,
I think you have beaten the experts here. At least you broadened my education. Now I know what a spine car is.
If they had them here in Indonesia I would lay odds that they would be called "spine car"s. Many languages just pick up foreign terms for things that are too hard to translate. From the look of the posts by our French Canadian friends above, the ones that find their way to Quebec get called “spine cars”.
Words get picked up from one language to another all the time. You would find little trouble working with mechanics here. All the parts of a car are derived from Dutch. For that matter the railways use a lot of Dutch terms too. Hardly surprising since Dutch people built the early railways here.
You guys guessed it right…all modelers here (Quebec city) call them “spine cars” and don’t feel that having a translation would help any,and so do I.However,the question tickled my interest so I did a little research and came up with this translation:
An intermodal car of any type is called “wagon porte-conteneur” in Europe and most probably the same here in Quebec.A straight word to word translation means a “container carrying car” wich in my mind makes full sense.Now for the more specific “spine car”,these are called “wagons squelette pour conteneurs” or “container squeleton cars”,wich also makes sense.Whether the CN guys here use these terms I can’t tell but since our club building is next to a switchyard,I’ll have to ask one of them some time.
Jacktal,
I think the “wagon squelette pour conteneurs” might be skeletal wagons. To my mind they are different to the spine cars as Hans described them. A skeletal (in my mind anyway) is a wagon with bogies at each end, but only a frame for the container to be locked to. No decking like a flat wagon.
Now what Hans described as a spine car is less than a skeletal, and I assume that is how it got its name. The skeletal is like a skeleton, but the spine car is just the backbone.
Try that on your mates at the switching yard. Maybe the spine cars do not get as far as Quebec?
No argument there…no hard feeling either.Personally,I didn’t konw what a spine car looks like so I asked a more experienced club member about it.From his explanation,I understand that a spine car is somewhat like an elongated horizontal H saped frame where a container sits and is held only by its corners without any structure under it other than the center beam that holds the trucks together.Sort of a minimal structure to equip the container with wheels while keeping weight at a minimum.I found the “wagon squelette” term on Internet and thought it could be it since no illustration could be found.
voiture d’épine is the correct way of saying spine cars… if I learned my french right… : )
I appreciate the trouble some of you went to to find the correct French name for a spine car. It seems I now have a couple of names to choose from. Now some of you may want to know why in **** does he want to know what this car is called in French. Well, I have a 5-car set that I want to sell; I put it on sale on the internet in my country but no one seemed to be interested enough to buy (the price was right!) so now I want to try e-bay France and/or Germany.
We don’t really have spine cars in Europe, as clearance do not allow such loading of trailers.
However we had in France “kangaroo” cars, in which the frame that supported the trailer wheels was lowered to allow for clearance. You can see a photo of this old design here : http://www.joueftrains.com/images/kangourou_wagon.jpg
The car was loaded with a special tractor : http://www.joueftrains.com/images/kangourou%20loading%20in%20progress.jpg
The desing evolved into longer cars on 4 wheel trucks that can be loaded with trailers or containers. More information on Novatrans web site : http://www.novatrans.fr/english/html/en-home.htm
Hope this helps.
You are right saying we have no expression for spine car. The proposed one “wagons squelette pour conteneurs” would indeed be the closest translation. “Wagon d’épine” doesn’t mean anything because the spine that was the analogy for the english expression is “colonne vertébrale” in french. Yes we see many of these cars in trailer / container consists.
Martin
Québec City