In recent years, combined systems based on vertical or horizontal handling have been implemented into European railway transport. In vertical and horizontal systems, loading and unloading require special terminals. Vehicles, using their own engines, are driven on and off platforms through a ramp at the last carriage (horizontal system). A railway wagon with a rotatable low and flat loading floor for bimodal transporting will be presented in this paper. Such a structure can be used for transporting various types of vehicles, for example, tractors, trucks, trailers, semitrailers, cargo containers. The railway wagon allows quick and convenient loading/unloading of vehicles and containers (without cranes), no platform infrastructure is required, instead of hardened, flat, surface; no need for hubs, terminals or special logistics; each wagon can be operated separately. It is possible to transport vehicles of 4m height and 36 tons mass on a GB1 gauge. The railway wagon comprises a body having end portions mounted on the standard two–axis bogies and a middle portion recessed with respect to the end portions along recess walls, a loading floor horizontally rotatable above the body. The loading floor is rotated by a pair of linear actuators, connected pivotally at each longitudinal side of the body to the longitudinal side edge of the body and to the middle of the corresponding longitudinal side edge of the loading floor. By dint of supporting the loading floor on guides and stabilizing it with locking pins, the wagon keeps a stable and rigid configuration during the transport. The loading floor is further supported on the rollers. The wagon may further comprise stabilizers mounted under the end portions of the body and configured to support the body on rails in the loading configuration.

Intermodal transport, railway wagon with a rotatable platform for transport of semitrailers, numerical FE analysis