Rolling stock comprises all the vehicles that move on a railway. It usually includes both powered and unpowered vehicles, for example locomotives, railroad cars, coaches, and wagons. However, in some countries (including the United Kingdom), the term is usually used to refer only to unpowered vehicles, specifically excluding locomotives which may be referred to as running stock, traction or motive power. Rolling stock is considered to be a liquid asset, or close to it, since the value of the vehicle can be readily estimated and then shipped to the buyer without much cost or delay.
Additional definition with the above as the derivation: The road vehicles of a trucking company.
The term contrasts with fixed stock (infrastructure), which is a collective term for the track, signals, stations, other buildings, electric wires, etc., necessary to operate a railway.
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Diesel and steam locomotives
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DMU rolling stock
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American-style hopper car
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Articulated well cars with intermodal containers
Read more about Rolling Stock: Code Names
Famous quotes containing the words rolling and/or stock:
“... in the cities there are thousands of rolling stones like me. We are all alike; we have no ties, we know nobody, we own nothing. When one of us dies, they scarcely know where to bury him.... We have no house, no place, no people of our own. We live in the streets, in the parks, in the theatres. We sit in restaurants and concert halls and look about at the hundreds of our own kind and shudder.”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)
“I’d rather I were dead and gone,
And my body laid in grave,
Ere a rusty stock o coal-black smith
My maidenhead should have.”
—Unknown. The Twa Magicians (l. 17–20)