What is "running gear"

Gear \Gear\ (g[=e]r), n. [OE. gere, ger, AS. gearwe clothing, adornment, armor, fr. gearo, gearu, ready, yare; akin to OHG. garaw[=i], garw[=i] ornament, dress. See Yare, and cf. Garb dress.]

1. Clothing; garments; ornaments.

   Array thyself in thy most gorgeous gear.
   --Spenser.

2. Goods; property; household stuff.
   --Chaucer.

   Homely gear and common ware.
   --Robynson (More's Utopia).

3. Whatever is prepared for use or wear; manufactured stuff or material.

   Clad in a vesture of unknown gear.
   --Spenser.

4. The harness of horses or cattle; trapping.

5. Warlike accouterments. [Scot.]
   --Jamieson.

6. Manner; custom; behavior. [Obs.]
   --Chaucer.

7. Business matters; affairs; concern. [Obs.]

   Thus go they both together to their gear.
   --Spenser.

8. (Mech.)

   1. A toothed wheel, or cogwheel; as, a spur gear, or a bevel gear; also, toothed wheels, collectively.

   2. An apparatus for performing a special function; gearing; as, the feed gear of a lathe.

   3. Engagement of parts with each other; as, in gear; out of gear.

9. pl. (Naut.) See 1st Jeer (b) .

10. Anything worthless; stuff; nonsense; rubbish. [Obs. or Prov. Eng.]
    --Wright.

    That servant of his that confessed and uttered this gear was an honest man.
    --Latimer.

    Bever gear. See Bevel gear.

    Core gear, a mortise gear, or its skeleton. See Mortise wheel, under Mortise.

    Expansion gear (Steam Engine), the arrangement of parts for cutting off steam at a certain part of the stroke, so as to leave it to act upon the piston expansively; the cut-off. See under Expansion.

    Feed gear. See Feed motion, under Feed, n.

    Gear cutter, a machine or tool for forming the teeth of gear wheels by cutting.

    Gear wheel, any cogwheel.

    Running gear. See under Running.

    To throw in gear or To throw out of gear (Mach.), to connect or disconnect (wheelwork or couplings, etc.); to put in, or out of, working relation.

n. (context automotive English) The wheels, suspension, steering, powertrain and usually the chassis of a motor vehicle.

In railway terminology the term running gear refers to those components of a railway vehicle that run passively on the rails, unlike those of the driving gear. Traditionally these are the wheels, axles, axle boxes, springs and vehicle frame of a railway locomotive or wagon.

The running gear of a modern railway vehicle comprises, in most instances, a bogie frame with two wheelsets. However there are also wagons with single axles (fixed or movable) and even individual wheels.

Because, today, locomotives no longer tend to have separate driving and carrying axles (see wheel arrangement), as was formerly common with steam locomotives, but usually have bogies where all axles are driven, the term running gear is (inaccurately) superseding the term 'driving gear' in some parts of the world.