What are the track guages around the world? North America of course mostly 4’8-1/2". I think Europe is one meter which is about 39". Australia has at least 3 different guages, some meter guage, some 4’8-1/2" which I think they call standard and the 3rd most gauge I forgot its measurement. There is one town I went through on a tour bus that I think the 3 most prominent guages all come into.
Southern Africa uses Cape Standard or 3’6".
Most of Europe is standard gauge (4’8.5"). Russia and Finland use 5’ gauge. Spain and Portugal are primarily 5’6" gauge. There are a few meter-gauge operations here and there, such as FEVE in Spain and the Rhaetian in Switzerland.
Australia indeed has three gauges: 3’6" (not meter) in Queensland and Western Australia, 5’3" in Victoria and parts of South Australia, and 4’8.5" everywhere else including some dual-gauge main lines in Victoria and Queensland.
India has two gauges: 5’3" and meter gauge. Both are large networks although the meter gauge is gradually being converted to 5’3".
I thought India (and Pakistan) were 5’ 6", not 5’ 3".
The gauge issue is interesting. AFAIK, the smallest commercial rail operations were a two foot gauge (or just under). The largest was just over 7 feet.
George Hilton deals with the issue in his “American Narrow Gauge Railroads”. Aparently, to this day, no one knows what the optimal gauge is. Not that it matters. 4’ 8.5" is the settled “standard” from the Mexican-Guatamalan border to Fairbanks, Alaska, as well as in Europe, China and elsewhere. And that isn’t going to change.
I heard on TV once that countries often would have different guages to make it harder for another country to invade.
That is true, and a drawback is that it also hinders economic trade.
The track gauge of The Ferrocarril Austral Fueguino (Southern Fueguean Railway), former logging-now-tourist railroad located near Ushuaia, Tierra Del Fuego, Argentina, is 50 centimeters, or 19.68 inches. Their primary motive power includes two 0-4-0+0-4-0s, of which the most recent one was built a couple years ago in South Africa.
Mark
Forgot to mention that the locomotive pictured to the left is the above subject locomotive.
Mark
A list of gauges used throughout railroad history:
http://www.parovoz.com/spravka/gauges-en.php
Scot
Rather looks as if the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch is the ‘narrowest’ commercial (non-amusement park) railway operation. It operates 1/4-scale steam (some of US design) - and a school train for the local education establishment.
For the teenagers present, how would you like to go to school on a 15-inch-gauge ‘school bus?’
Chuck
Weren’t the military supply railroads in France in WWI built to a gauge of 60cm?
I think I remember reading something relatively recently that in an effort to speed up intermodal deliveries to Western Europe the Japanese once approached the Russians about regauging the Trans-Siberia to 4’8½"; according to what I read the Japanese proposed that they would foot the bill for all of the intermodal equipment to be used. The Russians still display considerable 19th Century paranoia and rejected the proposal.
Now that, my friend, is a Trans-continental Railroad!!!
There is also a shrinking network of 610mm (roughly 24") routes in South Africa. Check out the baby GE’s that are used: http://www.locopage.net./afr-pics.htm Scroll down to South Africa for the UM6B’s.
The Russian paranoia over invasion is deeply ingrained into the psyche of the Russian people over the centuries and isn’t going away anytime soon.
I’d like to know the deceision process and factors that caused them to use a gauge that narrow.
Standard Gauge is close enough to ideal that even when all-new, disconnected, single-purpose railways are constructed today where a different gauge would not create significant extra cost, no one bothers to waste the client’s money studying if some other gauge might be more cost-effective to move the freight or passengers. Standard Gauge could have been anywhere from roughly 4"6" to 5"3" and been just fine.
RWM
Well, a governmental bureaucrat was probably involved in deciding on the half-meter track gauge since the railroad was part of a prison operation. My thought is that the gauge is about the smallest that can handle human operators, and the government wanted the cheapest railroad that would work.
From Wikipedia:
"Trench Railways represented military adaptation of early 20th century railway technology to the problem of keeping soldiers supplied during the static trench warfare phase of World War I. The large concentrations of soldiers and artillery at the front lines required delivery of enormous quantities of food, ammunition and fortification construction materials where transportation facilities had been destroyed. Reconstruction of conventional roads and railways was too slow, and fixed facilities were attractive targets for enemy artillery. Trench railways linked the front with standard gauge railway facilities beyond the range of enemy artillery. Empty cars often carried litters returning wounded from the front.
"France had developed portable Decauville railways for agricultural areas, small scale mining, and temporary construction projects. France had standardized 60-centimenter gauge military Decauville equipment and Germany adopted similar feldbahn of the same gauge. British War Department Ligh
hahahahaha… The cost of the equipement would be 100th the cost of redoing the gauge and then still halve to boat it across to Japan. It would be cheaper for Europe and japan to go russian gauge.
Worth a try though.
I don’t get it. If the traffic is intermodal, why would one want to change gauges to avoid one point of modal change in a 7000(?) mile journey when the majority of the traveled railroad would require modification? The whole idea of intermodal is to have an efficient method of transporting goods from one mode of transportation to another (as between railroad, truck, ship. and railroads of different gauge)? Will someone enlighten me? If Japan was willing to pay for the regauging, then that is another thing. Thanks.
If Russia’s unwillingness to regauge its railroads to conform with European standard gauge would be a significant financial benefit by avoiding transferring containers between trains of a different gauge, then this is one reason Russia will never meet its potential for being a wealthy country with happy citizens… If so, like many under-achieving nations (as far as economic development is concerned), Russiaian government thinking has been poor.
Mark
Two thoughts on guage. Coal mines would pick a guage that fit their operating needs. May width of seam and would move locos and cars to other locations and change guage. ie any width possible.
Spain is changing all their main lines to 4’ 8-1/2" to interchange equipment with France. Madrid- Barcelona has been completed. Don’t know about Portugal.
Correct. 5’ 3" gauge is used in Ireland, some Australian states and Brazil.
5’ 6" gauge, as well as being used in Spain, Portugal, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh (the last 4 countries were all part of the British Empire of India) is also I believe used in Argentina and Chile.
As to the question of the ideal gauge, it depends on a number of factors. I know of a nuclear power station in Scotland that has a railway of 5’ 4" gauge for purely internal use. The reason for this unique gauge is that the sole purpose of this railway is to transport containers round the site and based on the size of these containers 5’ 4" was thought to be the ideal gauge. Ironically the only locomotives are two diminutive 4 wheel Ruston and Hornsby 48hp diesels (their standard DS48 classs).