With the newest issue having the topic of narrow gauge, why not talk about wide gauge RRs that have been in the USA? Do any still exist in the USA?
Only one I know off is Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART)
Some of the railroads in the Confederate South were five foot gauge.
Mark
The T line in Pittsburgh is 5’ 2 1/2", what used to be called Pennsylvania Broad Gauge.
Standerd guage was adopted in the late 1800’s. There are maybe a handful of five foot or wider transit systems as indicated above. Then there were the narrower two and three footers of fame. But no “regular” railroad broader nor narrower than 4 ft. 8 1/2 inches in the US.
The following is a quote fro the Illinois Central Historical Society’s web site:
http://www.icrrhistorical.org/icrr.history.html
"…Like most of the railroads in the South, the route from Cairo south to New Orleans was built to a 5-foot track gauge. The entire 550-mile route was converted to standard gauge (4-foot-8-1/2 inches) in one day on July 29, 1881…"
Probably the most famous broad gauge RR in the US was the original Erie (New York and Erie Railway) which was built as 6 foot gauge. It was rebuilt to standard gauge in the latter 19th Century so it could interchange cars with the rest of the RR system.
IINM, there were some in-plant industrial RR’s built as broad gauge and some of these may operate. I believe this was mostly in the steel and metals industries…
That is because USA railroads are smart, broad gauge is more expensive to lay and maintain with virtualy no advantage over standard gauge. Trannsit agencies like BART are governement run presumably and don’t worry about such extra costs. There is absolutely no reason I can come up with that makes braod gauge better for BART. It shoulda been standard.
Narrow gauge on the other hand can save costs, still used in mining and such.
Your statement is too broad and general…there are some loading guage factors wide guage can do standard can’t…and we can’t here really determine the advantages and disadvantages, nor the economics of either unless we are transportation engineers and planners. To say out of hand that transit agencies like BART don’t worry about such costs is not a sound enineering nor financialy based statement but conjecture. High and wide products benefit yet today from rights of ways which were originally broad guage avenues. How much more load up, down and sideways, could a 5 or 6 foot guage do than a standard guage, I can’t say. To redo now, costs would be astronomical; but if 6 ft became the standard back when, Then today’s so called Standard guage, would be just as astronomical to introduce even if we saw some kind of fuel consumption or environmental savings in the long run.
And narrow guage saved costs often at great expense. Yes, it was quick and easy to build. It worked well in tight places for small loadings, but where economics came into play, it was relayed with standard guage or abandoned.
Ya , but give even one example that broad gage can do better the standard gage? I don’t have the numbers, but the examples are there, everyone who went broad gage as a major railway got away from it faster then those that were narrow gage. The major broad gage systems anywhere in the world have no advantage over standard gage system, like Russia and Spain, and parts of Australia etc… these are big railway systems that don’t function better the standard gage railways of the USA. The heaviest, the widest , the fastest and maybe even the most profitable railways in the whole world are all 4’ 8 and a half " gage. The cheapest railways are narrow gage, wich is at least something. I find the examples are worth more then number crunching.
Wider loading gage can be done with standard track gage, it’s mostly a matter of clearances and standardisation then track gage.
Why is BART broad gage anyways ?
Transit systems are built to non-standard gauge to reassure the political powers-that-be that nobody will start routing freight over them.
I recall that being stated rather explicitly when the specifications for BART were first made public.
The same thinking led to a number of streetcar systems being built to 42 inch gauge - the city council didn’t want freight cars rolling down Main Street in the middle of the night, or any other time.
Chuck
Ok, I can beleive that. But then I ask why choose a wider gage rather then narrower ? I would think the narrower gage would save money and be able to acomplish the same.
My faint recollection is that the main reason for BART being 5’-6" gage is for added stability against cross-winds while crossing some bridges in the Bay Area - either as part of the inital build, or a likely future expansion. The initial Rohr cars may have been aluminum, I believe, and when empty of passengers would be pretty light, but would still have a fairly tall profile for the wind to blow against. It may have been the long bridge across the bay over to Oakland - I know it’s not the Golden Gate Bridge. Otherwise, I’m not familiar enough with the system to know which bridge or where that might be a concern - where it is up on some elevated structures, perhaps ? - so I’ll have to rely on someone else to confirm or refute that.
Another possibility is for added stability against being shaken off the tracks by earthquakes. I can’t rule that out, but designing for a random event like that with unpredictable direction and magnitude doesn’t seem as credible to me as for stability against the predictable cross-winds.
- Paul North.
Paul,
Before BART got voted down in Marin County, there was a plan to connect SF with Marin County by placing rails on a lower deck of the Golden Gate bridge and that is what lead to the selection of 5’-6" gauge. A structural upgrade to the bridge precludes running tracks on it now.
- Erik
Does the bomb NBC television drama Supertrain count? [(-D]
erikem - OK, thanks for the clarifications/ corrections. I was about half-right, then - got the right concept, but not the locations. [It wasn’t until this morning that I remembered that BART would have no need of running over the Oakland-SF bridge . . . because it has that dandy tunnel under the bay instead . . . . [:I] ]
Otherwise, if trolley systems are still within the scope of this question and answer - don’t forget Philadelphia’s former Phila. Transit Co. - an earlier ‘PTC’, if you will - now SEPTA’s various subway-surface and suburban trolley lines, which are either the 5’-2-1/4’’ or 5’-2-1/2’’ gage, though I have no certainty as to why it was adopted as such way back when.
- Paul North.
I seem to recall that even today there are those who feel we should be looking at a broader guage - again, loading factors are the issue.
Knowing some of the old Erie line between Port Jervis and Binghampton, six foot gauge must have been interesting - there are several fairly tight curves.
From 1874-1880, you could go “broad gauge” (6’-0") from New York to St. Louis or Chicago…
Today, standard gauge seems like the perfect choice because it emerged as the consensus over a century ago, nobody questions it, and it appears to work perfectly. The larger reality, however, is that there is no point in questioning it because it cannot be changed.
Before the consensus, when there was freedom to choose the gauge, there were many opinions on what the ideal gauge should be, all based on the cost of construction and operation for each individual railroad. This engineering and operating cost analysis was quite complex, and there were some brilliant minds working out the problem. Even for an individual railroad company, the choice of gauge was a big commitment.
But more important than an ideal gauge for individual railroad economics was the need for consensus for a common or standard gauge because it was an absolute necessity for interchange compatibility. So they picked what seemed like the best gauge on average for their 1800s era, and put the matter to rest.
Since the adoption of standard gauge, however, the physical dimensions of locomotives, rolling stock, and track components have increased considerably while the gauge has r
[quote user=“Bucyrus”]
Today, standard gauge seems like the perfect choice because it emerged as the consensus over a century ago, nobody questions it, and it appears to work perfectly. The larger reality, however, is that there is no point in questioning it because it cannot be changed.
Before the consensus, when there was freedom to choose the gauge, there were many opinions on what the ideal gauge should be, all based on the cost of construction and operation for each individual railroad. This engineering and operating cost analysis was quite complex, and there were some brilliant minds working out the problem. Even for an individual railroad company, the choice of gauge was a big commitment.
But more important than an ideal gauge for individual railroad economics was the need for consensus for a common or standard gauge because it was an absolute necessity for interchange compatibility. So they picked what seemed like the best gauge on average for their 1800s era, and put the matter to rest.
Since the adoption of standard gauge, however, the physical dimensions of locomotives, rolling stock, and track components have increased considerably while the gauge has remained the same. Th