Draisine

A draisine (English: /dreɪˈziːn/) is a light auxiliary rail vehicle, driven by service personnel, equipped to transport crew and material necessary for the maintenance of railway infrastructure.

It is the first reliable claim for a practically used precursor to the bicycle, basically the first commercially successful two-wheeled, steerable, human-propelled machine, nicknamed hobby-horse or dandy horse.

Because of their low weight and small size, they can be put on and taken off the rails at any place, allowing trains to pass.

"Draisines", called dressin in Swedish, dresin in Norwegian, dræsine in Danish, and resiina in Finnish, refers to pedal-powered rail-cycles which were used by railroad maintenance workers in Finland, Sweden, and Norway until about 1950, as handcars were elsewhere.

Draisines nowadays are used for recreation on several unused railway lines in Germany, Sweden, Norway, Poland, some other European countries and South Korea.

Different armoured draisines were used during the Second World War, starting from the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany.