Portal:Trains/Selected article/Week 26, 2016

The Budd–Michelin rubber-tired rail cars were built by the Budd Company in the United States between 1931 and 1933 using French firm Michelin's "Micheline" rail car design. Michelin built its first rail car in 1929, and by 1932 had built a fleet of nine cars that all featured innovative and distinctive pneumatic tires. In September 1931, an agreement signed between the two companies allowed Budd to use the new rubber rail tires on its shot-welded, stainless-steel carbodies, and at the same time allowed Michelin to expand into the American market. After building two demonstrators, the Budd Company built four production rubber-tired rail cars for American railroads: one for the Reading Company, two for the Pennsylvania Railroad, and the Silver Slipper for the Texas and Pacific Railway. All were plagued by problems, chief among them was their tendency to derail. By 1935, the Silver Slipper had been scrapped, and the Pennsylvania's two cars, the longest surviving of the Budd–Michelin collaborations, met the same fate in 1948. Rubber-tired rail cars achieved greater success in France, and similar rubber-tired subway cars have been adopted in Canada and Mexico as well as on numerous systems in Europe.