#6400
Pendulum car
🇺🇸 United States ·built by Pacific Railway Equipment Company· experimental tilting train
4 photos from Wikimedia Commons · credits & licences
- 1. CBQ 6000 Silver Pendulum in Vancouver 01: Walter E. Frost· Public domain
- 2. Pendulum railroad coach 1937: Wide World Photos-published by Los Angeles Times· Public domain
- 3. CBQ 6000 Silver Pendulum in Vancouver 02: Walter E. Frost· Public domain
- 4. Santa Fe pendulum coach car: Santa Fe Railway· Public domain
what is it?
The pendulum car was an experimental tilting coach built by the Pacific Railway Equipment Company (PERC) in the early 1940s. It used an innovative coiled spring suspension system that allowed the cars to lean into curves, thus increasing passenger comfort during high speed travel. PERC built three cars which were tested on American railroads throughout the 1940s, but the advent of World War II, and their high cost relative to conventional equipment, prevented their wider adoption.
who runs it
base stats
Bars compare against all trains: 600 km/h (maglev), 1,700 seats; power, weight and number built on a log scale up to 20 MW, 1,000 t and 20,000 built.
fun facts
- Weighs about as much as 8 African elephants (~6 t each).
- 25.9 m long: about 6 cars parked nose to tail.
carriage / wagon: Unpowered passenger coaches or freight wagons, pulled by a locomotive.
spec sheet
- built
- —
- number built
- 3
- kind
- carriage / wagon
- origin
- 🇺🇸 United States
- builders
- Pacific Railway Equipment Company
- operators
- Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad, Great Northern Railway
- top speed
- —
- power
- —
- gauge
- 1,435 mm standard gauge
- length
- 25.9 m
- weight
- 49.4 t
From the Wikipedia infobox and Wikidata. Blank means the sources don't say.
Sources: Wikidata Q29920030, Wikipedia: Pendulum car (CC BY-SA 4.0).Updated 2026-10-25.