Summary: The terms “rail motorway” / “rolling highway” / “piggyback” actually refer to the same concept of German origin called “Rollende Landstraße”. What does it mean? It’s the possibility of transporting a complete lorry, including the tractor unit, on a train. The drivers take a seat in a couchette car on the same train. The size of a full truck does not allow the pocket wagon technique to be used, which means that wagons with extremely low floors are required, resulting in very small-diameter wheels (photo above, in the Tyrol). In France, however, the term ‘rail motorway’ was applied in the 2000s to intermodal transport using horizontal unloading wagons (without cranes) of the Lohr type. Unlike the German solution, these trains do not carry tractors but only trailers, with the exception of the AFA. Subsequently, the ‘rail motorway’ became a general public communication attribute that was used in all sorts of ways, encompassing in the broadest sense intermodal transport of semi-trailers in all its forms.