Bombardier Talent

The Bombardier Talent is a multiple unit light train developed by Waggonfabrik Talbot in Aachen shortly before Bombardier acquired the company in 1995. The name is a German acronym for Talbot light suburban self-propelled car. It comes in high-floor and low-floor forms, in diesel-mechanical, diesel-hydraulic, diesel-electric, electric and tilting variants, and in two, three or four carriages. Classed as heavy rail under UIC standards, it is an articulated railcar on Jacobs bogies, so the interior of a whole unit is one long cabin that passengers can walk through, and a unit cannot easily be taken apart without a railway yard. The optional ContRoll tilting system tilts the body directly with hydraulic cylinders. A prototype was presented in 1994 and the first Talents entered service in 1996. More than 260 run in Germany, Austria, Norway and elsewhere, and three diesel units once formed Ottawa's O-Train Line 2 until they were replaced in 2015. It has been superseded by the Talent 2 and Talent 3.