Michelines were a series of rubber-tyred trains developed in France in the 1930s by various rail companies and rubber-tyre manufacturer Michelin. Some Michelines were built in the United States by the Budd Company.
Most Michelines were self-propelled, but a number of locomotive-hauled trainsets were also produced.
Michelin is a French multinational tyre manufacturing company based in Clermont-Ferrand in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes région of France. It is the second largest tyre manufacturer in the world behind Bridgestone and larger than both Goodyear and Continental. In addition to the Michelin brand, it also owns the Kléber tyres company, Uniroyal-Goodrich Tire Company, SASCAR, Bookatable and Camso brands. Michelin is also notable for its Red and Green travel guides, its roadmaps, the Michelin stars that the Red Guide awards to restaurants for their cooking, and for its company mascot Bibendum, colloquially known as the Michelin Man, who is a humanoid consisting of tyres.
Michelin’s numerous inventions include the removable tyre, the pneurail (a tyre for rubber-tyred metros) and the radial tyre. Michelin manufactures tyres for Space Shuttles, aircraft, automobiles, heavy equipment, motorcycles, and bicycles. In 2012, the group produced 166 million tyres at 69 facilities located in 18 countries.
