What's a Train Bogie?

A bogie in the UK, or a railroad truck, wheel truck, or simply truck in North America, is a structure underneath a railway vehicle (wagon, coach or locomotive) to which axles (and, hence, wheels) are attached through bearings. In Indian English, bogie may also refer to an entire railway carriage.

What are train bogies called?

While railway vehicles initially ran on two or three fixed axles, the bogie, originally called the “swivelling bolster”, was soon generally accepted. It is a short two or three axle unit which is mounted under the vehicle frame so that it is free to move to a certain extent.

How does a train bogie work?

The wheels are pressed on to the axle so that they both rotate together. As we've seen above, normally two wheelsets are mounted in a bogie, so the bogie is simply a 4-wheeled truck – the Americans call it a truck – mounted under a railway carriage in order to support and guide the carriage along the track.