转筒式翻车机是最常用的铁路翻车机，用于自动卸载无上盖的铁路敞车。它在一段特殊的轨道上用液压机构把敞车侧墙挤住翻车机的靠车板，然后连同车辆与该段轨道一起被翻车机沿着车辆的纵轴旋转约170度，把载货卸入地下货仓。

如果列车的车辆之间使用旋转车钩，则可以不解体列车就使用转筒式翻车机卸货。对于传统车钩，翻车机有自动提钩装置。翻车机有空重车推车装置。

大型翻车机一次可卸4节敞车。

使用翻车机的敞车运输比用漏斗车的效率更高。因为漏斗车为了能通过车底部的出口自动卸货，需要在底出口四周设倾斜的滑道，这浪费了货车的空间。

A rotary car dumper or wagon tippler (UK) is a mechanism used for unloading certain railroad cars such as hopper cars, gondolas or lorries (tipplers, UK). It holds the rail car to a section of track and rotates the track and car together to dump out the contents. Used with gondola cars, it is making open hopper cars obsolete. Because hopper cars require sloped chutes in order to direct the contents to the bottom dump doors (hatches) for unloading, gondola cars allow cars to be shorter, thus lowering their center of gravity, while carrying the same gross rail load.