opolt Jan 8, 2011:

IMHO this is not about principles ... ... or anything. I'm in favour of good xlation practice and all that, but I suggest we keep this down to earth. I can see where you come from, Andrew, but to me, the main question is whether "rigid" transmits the idea of two opposing wheels on one conventional axle assembly, as opposed to the "Losrad" design mentioned elsewhere ... The decision whether to use this term or not is to be made according to the entire context, which is not available to us, so personally I will refrain from arguing too much about this one. But it just could work -- or not.

At any rate, using such a substitution is nothing out of the ordinary and per se doesn't infringe on anything. It just depends on the details. So let's discuss the latter -- though personally I wouldn't know what to add to the argument.

BTW I have no intention of turning this into an official answer...

Lancashireman Jan 8, 2011:

The art of translation Hello again, Philip. Your comment below goes to the very heart of what constitutes good translation practice. Regards. AJS

phillee Jan 8, 2011:

As opolt has pointed out indirectly, we are not obliged to translate everything literally. Given the context, opolt's suggestion is IMHO correct.

Lancashireman Jan 8, 2011:

@ phillee That would be taking a liberty with the source text. The author wrote 'durchgehende Achsen', not 'Starrachsen'.

phillee Jan 8, 2011:

@opolt Rigid axle is the correct term - put it in in if you like.

opolt Jan 8, 2011:

Durchgehende Achsen sind ... ... bisher fast überall der Normalfall bei Schienenfahrzeugen, man könnte also auch einfach schreiben: "conventional axles". Es handelt sich meist um eine einigermaßen simple, starre Konstruktion, die u.a. die jew. zwei gegenüberliegenden Räder miteinander verbindet (im Unterschied zu den Losrädern -- vgl. d. entsprechende Frage v. holly). Ich persönlich würde eher an "rigid axle" denken. Das ist natürlich sprachlich nicht das gleiche, aber in der Wirklichkeit läuft es darauf hinaus :-]

https://online.tugraz.at/tug_online/fdb_detail.ansicht?cvfan...
http://www.bombardier.com/en/transportation/products-service...

Lancashireman Jan 7, 2011:

BE axles Possibly AE too