Not all trains are the same: these are just some of the variations around the world.

Monorail
A monorail train runs on a single rail, instead of on a track or two rails. It is either suspended from the rail or straddles it. The Tokyo Monorail in Japan carries 100 million passengers a year. There are also monorails in Malaysia, Australia and the USA. Several American airports have monorails, as does Disney World in Florida.

Maglev
The name maglev comes from the words magnetic and levitation. These trains do not run on a track, but float above it by means of magnetic repulsion. The lack of contact means there is no friction, so trains can travel very smoothly at high speeds up to 650km/h and use little energy. A new 160km Maglev line is being built in 2006-10 to connect Shanghai to Hangzhou, China. It will be the worlds first inter city Maglev service.

Rubber-tyred metro
These electric trains run along a tracked roadway on rubber tyres. They are quiet, and can accelerate quickly and tackle slopes. They first ran in Paris in the 1950s and have been introduced in other French cities as well as in Santiago. Chile, Mexico City and Montreal, Canada.

Funicular
Funiculars (from the Latin funiculus, a thin rope) are designed to go up and down steep hills or mountains. Cars are drawn up by cables and descend by gravity. Funiculars are used in mountain and other resorts, and in hilly parts of cites, such Montmartre in Paris, and Montjuic in Barcelona. The steepest passenger funicular is the Katoomba Scenic railway in New South Wales, Australia.

Cog railway
Cog or rack-and-pinion railways are mountain railways. The train has a rotating cogwheel that meshes with a rack rail, enabling the rain to climb steep slopes safely. Mount Pilatus near Lucerne, Switzerland, has the worlds steepest. The Snowdon Mountain Railway in Wales is the only one of this type in the UK.

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