Railbus

Railbuses designed for use specifically on little-used railway lines were commonly employed in countries such as Germany, Italy, France, the United Kingdom, and Sweden.

[citation needed] Modern diesel-electric railcars, which can be run coupled as multiple units, like the Stadler RS1, the RegioSprinter of Siemens, or the successor Siemens Desiro, share the role and specifications with railbuses (albeit with improvements in noise, low floor design, fuel efficiency, speed, and other measures), but are usually not referred to by the term "railbus" any longer.

They are mostly used in rural parts of the country where the tracks have not yet been repaired and so can't handle the weight of regular trains.

[3] In 1937, the NSW Department of Railways added six Waddington-built four-wheel streamlined FP Paybuses to serve on small branch lines out of Cowra and Harden that did not have enough passengers to justify a rail motor.

The Kaoham Shuttle utilizes DMU railbuses for its daily service between Lillooet and D'Arcy, British Columbia.

It was built to standard specifications on Germany's Reichsbahn (the predecessor to DB) to meet the demand for cost-effective services on light railways or Kleinbahnen (the Wismar railbus was a pioneer in those days.)

After the Second World War, the eventually ubiquitous Uerdingen railbuses were developed by Deutsche Bundesbahn in single-engined and double-engined versions.

A number of serious accidents in Germany in the late 1970s involving railbuses resulted in the specification and development of larger, more robustly designed diesel railcars.

Both the Uerdingen Schienenbus and the Bautzen railbuses have virtually disappeared from regular revenue service, but its diesel rail car successors are still widely used.

On August 5, 2012, the first railbus service in the country Batara Kresna railbus was launched to accommodate parts of Prambanan Ekspres commuter rail passengers in Central Java from Purwosari Station in Solo to Wonogiri Station in Wonogiri and vice versa.

[13] In 2016, Lembah Anai railbus was launched in West Sumatra to serve passengers from Kayu Tanam Station in Padang Pariaman to Minangkabau International Airport.

However, JNR found railbuses less reliable in daily operation as compared to standard rail equipment and discontinued their use in the 1960s.

Railbuses are used in various areas with little passenger demand, including from Kandy to the suburb of Peradeniya and the Kelani Valley line in Colombo.

The route from Maho Junction to Polghawela in North Western Province is also serviced by Lanka Ashok Leyland railbuses.

[19] British Rail produced a variety of railbuses as a means both of building new rolling stock cheaply, and to provide services on lightly used lines economically.

A variety of railbus known as Pacers, which were constructed in the 1980s, remained in service until 2021,[20] they were phased out as a result of their failure to comply with accessibility requirements.

Few were successful, as many railroads cooperated with highway bus services to eliminate passenger trains from their branch lines.