Just about anyone who has read Hilton’s book on Narrow Gauge Railroads…[:)]
- Erik
To quote myself, from the time this program aired some time ago, “This sounds like the kind of thing a bunch of engineering geeks would come up with when combining, What if,” and beer at a pub while their football-playing contemporaries were getting better acquainted with the cheerleaders."
First off, either end of an Alaska-Siberia tunnel would be thousands of miles from anyplace that would have any need for the service.
Then, they want to build this thing up in the vicinity of the Aleutians? I wonder if any of them ever looked at climate data and/or weather records for that area.
Not to mention the mega-$$$$ needed for even a preliminary survey…
Bridge to Nowhere, meet Tunnel from Really Nowhere to Really Nowhere…
Chuck
…How is the brake linkage and or hoses handled when dropping one set of trucks and installing another…?
Never understood the economics of Narrow gauge anyway…Sure shorter radii curves, etc…But all the negatives…Many narrow gauge lines were changed to standard gauge eventually.
On rough narrow gauge track…I don’t understand how they even overcome the swaying engine from overturning. And if using standard coal hoppers with temporary installed narrow gauge trucks…That completely boggles my mind. Just some thoughts…[2c]
The problem isn’t weight, it’s pressure. the water pressure at the bottom of the ocean is definately higher than on the surface. i could also see how Russia’s railroad gauge is different than the US being a problem as well. another question is why russia built their gauge different than the UK (standard). Wouldn’t you think that they’d build he same gauges to make for easy connections and transportation of goods and people?
Putting aside the pros & cons of various gauges, as discussed in the earliest days of railroading, there is some thought that Russian & Iberian gauges were deliberately (and somewhat paranoidly) made non-standard, to make it harder for potential invaders to from those adjoining standard-gauge countries.
A lot of RRs were built to "different’ gauges to DELIBERATELY exclude exchanging of equuipment! Even relatively modern builds… BART (the Bay Area Rapid Transit in San Fransisco) was built to 5-ft gauge to keep any RR from demanding access to the track for freight hauling.
But, beyond that many wanted to pick a gauge that would produce an advantage for them and a disadvantage for the competitors, or at least be so different that once their company was selected for transportation, they would have some sort of exclusivity.
Same thing happens today in computer data formats. “Mine’s better’n yourn” syndrome. NIH factor.
Today’s “Standard Gauge” was not considered “Standard” way back when. Everybody had their own ideas as to what the gauge SHOULD be. “Standard” only became “Standard” because that was the most common of the random gauges and company’s began to gravitate to it when equipment exchange became an ecconomic advantage greater than the advantage of being unique. It helped a lot when President Lincoln said the Transcontental RR was to be what we now call “Standard Gauge”.
I highly recommend George Hilton’s “American Narrow Gauge Railroads” book, which is the seminal work on this unfortunate (from an economic standpoint, rather than a railfan standpoint)) part of railroad history. It is a very readable work that addresses all of the questions you have raised . Suffice it to say that that the same questions you raise were raised during the period that narrow gauge railroads were being promoted and built and that those who raised these questions proved to be right.
Well, there are certainly some railroads built to odd guages to deliberately prevent inerchange (the Russian railroads being a particular case in point ), but this wasn’t typical in the U.S. Rather, the different guages adopted by early US railroads reflected the fact that, when built, they conceived of themselves as local enterprises (often to connect land-locked communities with waterways) and not as part of a future national rail network (something which the early railroads probably could not even imagine). As such, they initially saw no reason to worry about compaptible gauges and equipment interchange. It was only later, when the individual railroads started realizing that their future was in being part of a nat
Russians believe that Germans were born with some kind of genetic defect that in the spring causes them to saddle up their warhorses (later tanks) and head east! If the Russians had access to railroad ties that exploded when non-Russian equipment passed over, those might have been included as well. [:D]
[:-^] Quentin, one would wonder if Rube Goldberg designed and worked at any of these railroads.
HEH HEH Cannonball
Perhaps Rube did have a hand in some of the questionable designs. When one thinks about even steam engine design…Put the operator’s back in a position that vision forward was questionable, and also stick them at the hottest place on the engine. Perhaps the most dangerous too.
Yes, I’m aware they would have been in grave danger right in front but SP did it for a while…Cab Forward’s…
Cab Forwards were also oil-burners, which was a later development in steam technology.
For coal (and before that wood)-burning engines, the cab had to be between the tender and boiler. How else is a fireman supposed to keep feeding the fire?