Innovative Cars: SMART Forrail
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The SMART car has been known for many years now as an efficient commuting machine. Cheap in price, small and very lightweight – SMART produced a car that could reliably get you from A to B with excellent fuel efficiency.
In 2015, SMART’s engineers created something remarkable by combining two popular modes of transport. The result was the SMART ‘Forrail’.
The Forrail is a car-cross-train that’s essentially a ForFour but on rails, a one-off experiment from SMART to showcase their clever engineering skills.
Six months of engineering work went into manufacturing the car. Unique steel wheels were equipped with aluminium supports, to weld the axels in place, thus removing all steering. The wheels measured 22” in diameter and weighed 80kg to ensure enough traction on the rails.
The specialised train engineering business in Derby, Interfleet, helped work on the project to try and turn the small compact car into an effective mini-train.
The Forrail was tested under close supervision on the private Bluebell Railway in Sussex to great success. The 10 mile stretch of track turned out to be no challenge for the Forrail, as it whizzed around effortlessly.