In his book The Story of Taiwan's Trains, Hung Chih-wen, a writer on railway history, writes that to get trains up grades, Switzerland's alpine railway and Japan's Ohigawa railway use a rack-and-pinion system which prevents trains from sliding backwards.
鐵道文化作家洪致文在《台灣火車的故事》一書中指出，為了讓火車能夠適合爬山，不至於走一步退兩步，瑞士的阿爾卑斯山及日本的大井川鐵路，以輪子中的齒輪咬合鐵軌中的齒形鐵道，防止火車像「倒溜滑梯」。