I understand the OP mentions North America specifically, but as an aside the trend seems to be running somewhat in favor of Broad to Standard gauge, specifically in the new High-Speed lines in Spain & Portugual which are Standard gauge (the rest of Spain/Portugual trackage is mostly broad gauge), in a line in Austrailia (Melbourne-Adelaide, converted from Broad to Standard in 1995), and in the planned conversion of the Baltic States from Russian gauge to standard Gauge (however, even Wiki is skeptical of this, and marks it with a ‘cite’ request - I’m a bit skeptical too).
However, lovers of Broad Gauge, don’t fret, as Indian has a long term project to convert it’s narrow gauge line to Broad gauge lines (I’d hate to be the infrastructure lead on that project, going from 610mm narrow gauge to 1676mm Broad gauge - over 2 1/2 times the ROW requirements!)
Has this thread been edited by the revision of the original post and removal of some of the earlier posts in order to confine the topic to the U.S.? I seem to recall that the OP did not stipulate the topic being confined to the U.S., and subsequent posters were of differing opinions about whether the OP intended to confine his question to the U.S.
You are correct in your statement about the size comparison between a c1900 automobile and a modern tractor trailer. Make the same comparison between a c1900 freight train and a modern mile long doublestack train and you will see my point: it is the loading gauge rather than the distance between the rails that is really important, and in North America that has increased many times…
While one can make the argument that “if a doublestack is good a quadruple stack (2 high but double wide) is better” but I would be very surprised if the cost of a “clean sheet of paper”" ultra wide gauge system would be economically favorable compared to increasing capacity th
You are correct in your statement about the size comparison between a c1900 automobile and a modern tractor trailer. Make the same comparison between a c1900 freight train and a modern mile long doublestack train and you will see my point: it is the loading gauge rather than the distance between the rails that is really important, and in North America that has increased many times…
While one can make the argument that “if a doublestack is good a quadruple stack (2 high but double wide) is better” but I would be very surprised if the cost of a “clean sheet of paper”" ultra wide gauge system would be economically favorable compar
FWIW, there was a scheme, never carried out, to cover the European continent with a three meter gauge super-railroad. The main backer, a cat with a toothbrush moustache who was then Chancellor of Germany, ran into some difficulties (losing WWII, for openers) that killed the idea.
I don’t know about before, but the OP definitely mentions US broad gauge railroads (and if any still exist) - also, the Topic itself is clear “WIDE gauge RRs in the USA?” but perhaps that was edited also.
Re-reading the wiki info on Project Unigauge, it seems now that only the Metre Gauge lines in India are being converted, not the narrow gauge lines (the 610mm gauge I mentioned, or the cape-gauge 3’6"). I stand corrected.
The Indian Ministry of Railways might take issue with “standard gauge.” They’re practically bankrupting themselves converting everything they can to 5’6" gauge.
How custom-designed does the MOW equipment need to be for BART except for just wider trucks? Surely I’m missing something exotic and bizarre besides wider trucks.
One of the problems the CSA faced was (IIRC) the railroads of the South operated on something like 4 different gauges, so it was impossible to ship men or material very far without having to transload everything. The North by comparison had much more standard gauge trackage and was more uniform.
BTW re wide gauge, it’s interesting that since the Mallets were retired, loading gauges have actually been made narrower, even as freight cars grow in capacity. One reason a Big Boy would be hard to operate today is it would require a major reworking of the right of way in many areas, like curves, bridges etc.
For example, the “fingers” of a tamper would have to be respaced to be inside and outside of the rail. Switch tampers have hydraulic cylinders that extend to move the tines out so they can work on the ends of the ties. Those would have to be changed, also.
Wasn’t the quest for a wider loading gage the genesis of placing two “standard gage” tracks on 25 foot centers and then designing cars with span bolsters riding on a truck on each track? This would save a fair portion of the cost of converting by using existing trucks and wheelsets.
Very. Most MOW equipment doesn’t have trucks - they’re only 4-wheel vehicles, so the axles are pretty much rigidly mounted in the frame. So either the whole frame has to be spread or widened to accomodate the new wheel locations, or some other adaption made.
rrnut touched on some of the points with a tamper. But those also have rail clamps for use as ‘track jacks’ in the raising process, so those would have to be respaced, as well as the light buggy out front, the spacer buggies, and the rollers under the ‘shadowboard’. Ballast regulators are similar - the frame would have to be altered// split and widened so that the wings are farther out, as well as the front plow. All hi-rail equipment would need wider wheels, and that means thicker axles, for more special items. That’s OK for pick-up trucks, but significant for bigger equipment such as Pettibone Speed Swings, cranes, dump trucks, Gradalls, etc.
Back when I was preparing bids for work on SEPTA’s ‘Pennsylvania gage’ trolley lines, the rail equipment manufacturers told me that to retrofit the wheels of the equipment to go the 6 inches wider would not be a big problem, so maybe going to 10 inches would not be that bad. But the track equipment is far more complicated and sophisticated today than it was then, 20 - 25 years ago.
The “double wide” train you are thinking about has been proposed at least a couple of times; Back in the 1960’s GATX (the railcar lessors) proposed an "autotrain"system called RRollway which, if built would have had cars more than 17 feet wide allowing automobiles to be driven on crosswise and parked side -by- side in the dual level cars…
There also was an article by James W. Kennedy published in the March, 1976 edition of TRAINS called “The Double Track Train” where the other proposed 24 foot wide rolling stock operating on parallel standard guage tracks. The article was complete with diagrams and photographs of HO scale models the author had built to demonstrate the concept.
It is a cool concept but again, I don’t see what a double track train would do (other than the parallel parking trick) that improving clearances, trackage, and increasing capapcity on a standard gauge network wouldn’t do more ecomonically…
Congress did NOT decree that “railroads who would participate in interstate commerce would be 56 1/2 inches”. They only decreed that the UP-CP transcontinental railroad would be constructed to this gauge. It may well be that this led to a standardization of gauges at 56 1/2 inches for commercial reasons (a development whic was already well under way) but it wasn’t mandated by the government. The subsequent development of narrow gauge railroads in the 1870’s and 80’s shows that there was no such government edict. While much of the narow gaugage network was short lived (at least as narrow gauge), there were many narrow gauge lines which were interstate or which participa
To my knowledge, this is not true - Congress never mandated 56.5 inches as the gauge for U.S. railroads, whether they interchanged traffic or not. They only mandated this gauge for the UP-CP transcontinental railroad. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the development of narrow guage railroads in the 1870s and 1880’s (some of which were interstate or participated in interstate traffic) shows that there was no such fiat. The accident you mention was probably the 1867 “Angola Horror” in New York, which was caused by a car equipped with “compromise wheels” intended to allow it to be used on lines with different guages. It’s certainly possible that Congress banned the use of “compromise wheels” after this accident, but they did not mandate a uniform gauge for US railroads.
There were quite a few streetcar lines (particularly in the east) built to wide gauge. In general, ithis was done because municipalities demanded wide gauge as a condition to their franchises. The reason they demanded this has nothing to do with any intrinsic advantages of wide guage. Rather, they did it to make sure that the street railway couldn’t move freight cars through the streets. I don’t know enough about New Orleans to know if this was the reason for wide gauge there. I believe that much of the St. Charles line (at least) was originally bult as a wide gauge steam or horse line (many sourthern railways were originally built to wide guage although characteristically, not to the same gauge)