The World's Smallest Train is a Car

By: Ameya Naik | Updated: June 30, 2015 13:36 IST

We've all plied on trains, may it be within the city or outside it and we are all aware how much time it saves, especially considering that city streets are filled to the brim with traffic. Suggestions run amok about how flying cars can ease the burden of traffic in the distant future but current options run from sensible stuff like carpooling to even using public transport. However, no one thought of railroads. Can we not have cars modified to run on rails?

Well, we can. Smart has transformed the latest generation of the Forfour into the world's smallest train. This is no April Fools joke and is in fact a real car with solid steel wheels to get it on the track. The car was designed by a team from the UK-based firm Interfleet, who usually deal with huge 70-ton, 16-litre diesel locomotives. This time however, they were dealing with something smaller, much smaller.

Modifying the tiny Smart forfour into what you see in the picture took the engineers six months and this included a lot of CAD modeling and a massive engineering overhaul. The standard alloy wheels on the forfour had to be done away with and this customized version came with massive 22-inch solid steel wheels, each weigh 80 kg.

The engineers even removed the car's steering system and to make sure the wheels remained locked in position they welded aluminum supports between the axles.

This one-off car was tested on a 16 km stretch of railway on the privately-operated Bluebell Railway which cuts a direct route through Sussex and a handful of commuters got the chance to ride in it too. The smallest train in the world did six runs at low speeds with a licensed train driver in the car and supervised by trained staff from the railway at all time.

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Source: The World's Smallest Train is a Car