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If the gauge were 4'1½"


TonyMay
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Assuming that the loading gauge stays the same, my gut feeling is that speeds would have to be lower - or more derailments on curves would occur as there would be less of a margin of safety.

 

The six- and ten-foot intervals would become the seven- and eleven-foot. Junctions would be slightly shorter.

 

n gauge would be called e gauge?

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5 hours ago, Steamport Southport said:

Some were very close. The Padarn and Saundersfoot Railways for example were both 4 foot.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Padarn_Railway

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saundersfoot_Railway

 

 

 

 

Jason

Hi everyone,

 

Not sure we'd have as large a loading gauge, for reasons of stability.  That said, I wonder what the loading gauge is like for some of the world's metre gauge lines.

 

Isn't the Glasgow underground built to a 4' 0" gauge?

 

The 'Saundersfoot Railway' is new to me, so I will look it up.

 

Regards,

 

Alex.

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Australian 3'6" lines have/had a larger than UK loading gauge. Here in WA, as far as the Mk1 Eyeball can tell, the remaining narrow gauge freight stock and locomotives are, effectively, indistinguishable from standard, except for the bogies. 

 

Mind you, WA's narrow gauge lines have never had high-speed running in the UK sense. Queensland, OTOH, achieves somewhat brisker schedules using tilt technology. Mind you, having just looked up the Spirit of Queensland, I note that it still only averages ~40mph. That's with a lot of stops though. 

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Now here's another question. What if it was slightly wider? In Passages from the Life of a Philosopher published in 1864, Charles Babbage wrote he asked George Stephenson that if no railways existed would he still choose a gauge of 4 feet 8½ inches? Stephenson replied "I would take a few inches more, but a very few."

 

So what if it was, say, 4'10"?

 

Cheers

David

 

 

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15 minutes ago, DavidB-AU said:

Now here's another question. What if it was slightly wider? In Passages from the Life of a Philosopher published in 1864, Charles Babbage wrote he asked George Stephenson that if no railways existed would he still choose a gauge of 4 feet 8½ inches? Stephenson replied "I would take a few inches more, but a very few."

 

So what if it was, say, 4'10"?

 

Cheers

David

 

 

 

Or, say, 5'3"?

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22 minutes ago, DavidB-AU said:

Now here's another question. What if it was slightly wider? In Passages from the Life of a Philosopher published in 1864, Charles Babbage wrote he asked George Stephenson that if no railways existed would he still choose a gauge of 4 feet 8½ inches? Stephenson replied "I would take a few inches more, but a very few."

 

So what if it was, say, 4'10"?

 

Cheers

David

 

 

That's getting sufficiently close to Victorian/Spanish/Russian/Irish/Indian gauges that it should be possible to find existing examples of likely developments. 

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A slightly narrower gauge would probably have seen the end of inside cylinders much sooner than was the case in reality, and might have prevented the use of 4 cylinder steam engines entirely (or created some bizarre creations where the two inside ones we vertically stacked or longitudinally offset).

 

Or outside frames might have persisted longer.

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12 hours ago, Alex TM said:

Hi everyone,

 

Not sure we'd have as large a loading gauge, for reasons of stability.  That said, I wonder what the loading gauge is like for some of the world's metre gauge lines.

 

Isn't the Glasgow underground built to a 4' 0" gauge?

 

The 'Saundersfoot Railway' is new to me, so I will look it up.

 

Regards,

 

Alex.

If standard was 4ft 1 1/2, then the Glasgow Underground would be 3 ft 8in and the trains even smaller!

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13 hours ago, ColinK said:

This discussion has given me an idea, go the opposite way and make a modern image layout but using Brunel’s broad gauge!

Something I seriously considered some years ago,  though my thoughts were Brunel's gauge,  Stephenson's loading gauge, as a compromise result of the gauge wars.

  If this had happened locos would have been almost entirely inside cylinder.  But today the increased stability would have made high speed rail much easier.. 

 

Plus or minus a few inches would have  made little difference to railways as they turned out.  Even a foot there wouldn't be that much difference.

Loading gauges were often set by how well the railway was funded.  Witness the small tunnels in the south east and Isle of wight.

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Apparently standard gauge is about at the sweet spot, for usefulness. Go much smaller and you start having to reduce the speed or the size of your rolling stock. Go much wider and you start to get problems with cornering and need greater radii for your curves. But do not get a huge advantage in stock size, as standard gauge will support stock up to what is normally useful.

 

Larger and smaller loading gauges however are the real game changers. If that nice Mr Stephenson had foreseen the utility of being able to double stack freight containers, that would have been a whole new ball game.

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35 minutes ago, Trog said:

Apparently standard gauge is about at the sweet spot, for usefulness. Go much smaller and you start having to reduce the speed or the size of your rolling stock. Go much wider and you start to get problems with cornering and need greater radii for your curves. But do not get a huge advantage in stock size, as standard gauge will support stock up to what is normally useful.

 

Larger and smaller loading gauges however are the real game changers. If that nice Mr Stephenson had foreseen the utility of being able to double stack freight containers, that would have been a whole new ball game.

But there would have been no room for passengers luggage on the roof, as per original stage coach style!

 

As far as larger freight vehicles are concerned, the original L&M rails were spaced so that outsize trains would run using the outer rails of the up & down lines. Thus giving double width. Obviously this was soon realised as impractical.

 

Difficult to see everything. Brunel was certainly wrong about broad gauge being required to run fast trains. Also his track construction method, was vastly more expensive, yet gave an often worse ride.

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16 hours ago, Alex TM said:

The 'Saundersfoot Railway' is new to me, so I will look it up.

An industrial railway in Pembrokeshire. It connected mines (coal, iron) inland with ironworks (one of which still exists as a ruin) and with the small port at Saundersfoot. The approach to the port was along a ledge at the cliff's foot, through rock-cut tunnels and finally along a street of the town.  It would make a cute cameo-model.

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3 hours ago, TheQ said:

Something I seriously considered some years ago,  though my thoughts were Brunel's gauge,  Stephenson's loading gauge, as a compromise result of the gauge wars.

  If this had happened locos would have been almost entirely inside cylinder.  But today the increased stability would have made high speed rail much easier.. 

 

Plus or minus a few inches would have  made little difference to railways as they turned out.  Even a foot there wouldn't be that much difference.

Loading gauges were often set by how well the railway was funded.  Witness the small tunnels in the south east and Isle of wight.

 

2 hours ago, Trog said:

Apparently standard gauge is about at the sweet spot, for usefulness. Go much smaller and you start having to reduce the speed or the size of your rolling stock. Go much wider and you start to get problems with cornering and need greater radii for your curves. But do not get a huge advantage in stock size, as standard gauge will support stock up to what is normally useful.

 

Larger and smaller loading gauges however are the real game changers. If that nice Mr Stephenson had foreseen the utility of being able to double stack freight containers, that would have been a whole new ball game.

Indeed.  The limit on railway speed is more about aerodynamics than anything to do with track gauge.  The curving speed is limited on the grounds of safety and comfort of passengers on the train, as this limit is reached long before there is any risk of overturning. 

 

Looking at the chimney on Rocket, I think the Stephensons probably were contemplating a bigger loading gauge than what they ended up with.  

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7 hours ago, kevinlms said:

If standard was 4ft 1 1/2, then the Glasgow Underground would be 3 ft 8in and the trains even smaller!

That's a terrifying thought; I'm 6'3", and the Underground trains are already too small …...

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The curving speed is limited on the grounds of safety and comfort of passengers on the train, as this limit is reached long before there is any risk of overturning. 

On the 3'6" lines in Southern Africa the loading gauge allowed a width of 10'6" and the Garratts did have cabs of that width. And they were not immune to overturning, it was managed with at least one of the 15th class  engines. And in my days on ZR one of our drivers managed to overturn his GE diesel (U20C) when taking the passenger train down the Kafue escarpment, the buckeye coupler just lifted out like it was the hand of God taking the loco, the vac pipe pulled apart and the coaches rolled to a gentle stop some way down the hill, no track damage, no derailment or damage to the coaches but the loco was on its side 50 feet or so down the embankment.

Rgds

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8 minutes ago, Grovenor said:

On the 3'6" lines in Southern Africa the loading gauge allowed a width of 10'6" and the Garratts did have cabs of that width. And they were not immune to overturning, it was managed with at least one of the 15th class  engines. And in my days on ZR one of our drivers managed to overturn his GE diesel (U20C) when taking the passenger train down the Kafue escarpment, the buckeye coupler just lifted out like it was the hand of God taking the loco, the vac pipe pulled apart and the coaches rolled to a gentle stop some way down the hill, no track damage, no derailment or damage to the coaches but the loco was on its side 50 feet or so down the embankment.

Rgds

Narrower gauges were and are clearly more at risk of overturning, particularly in a strong sidewind.  But even in this cases I'd expect the permitted speed to have been grossly exceeded and the passengers to have been thrown about.  

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