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What if 7ft gauge had become the standard?


Stubby47
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Just supposing IKB had won the argument and his 7ft gauge had been adopted as the standard gauge.

 

What would locos and rolling stock have looked like at Grouping, Nationalisation, post-60s diesel and modern, current day trains?

 

Would the rest of the world have a followed suit, giving us a 7ft gauge Big Boy, Blue Pullman, TGV and Shinkansen?

Or something vastly different?

 

 

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If we have had a 7ft gauge I suspect that there would be far more freight on the rails, possibly in the form of wagons to drive vehicles on and off of. The wider gauge would give the stability to drive on and off the sides speeding loading and unloading. 

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I think that, realistically, it could never have happened. Narrowing the gauge is relatively uncomplicated, as you can simply reduce the distance between the rails. But widening the gauge is a lot more complex, because it can't be done within the existing loading gauge and trackbed - it would require rebuilding bridges, tunnels, stations, etc. So the wholesale conversion of Stephenson gauge railways to Brunel gauge would have been impossible, at least without massively unaffordable expenditure.

 

Had the Railway Regulation (Gauge) Act 1846 never been passed, therefore, I think what would have been more likely is that standardisation would not have happened at all, or, at least, would have taken a lot longer to become the norm. In the long run, though, I think that Stephenson's gauge would still have won, at least in Britain. 

 

Outside Britain, though, I think that things would be different. One of the main reasons why standard gauge is a global standard is because  the UK standardised first. Had we not done so, there would be no hugely compelling reason for other countries to pick the same standard. A lot of early European railways were 5' gauge (and that is still the standard in Russia and parts of Eastern Europe). So, in the absence of a defined British standard to copy, I think that 5' would have become the European standard gauge.

 

I don't think that would hugely have affected the appearance of locomotives, as it's only a few inches wider and, in any case, it's the loading gauge rather than the track gauge which is more important when it comes to visual differences. But it would, of course, have posed problems for the Channel Tunnel. We'd have needed either a Talgo-style dual-gauge Eurostar, or build HS1 to European gauge.

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Mark, I accept your hypothesis that in practice (and reality) Stephenson's gauge was the most sensible option.

 

But what if Stephenson had adopted the 7ft gauge rather than 4ft 8.5"... 

 

7ft gauge is much more stable, and would probably have needed larger radius curves, so would we have had a need for HS1 ?

I like Kris's idea that freight would still be more commonly carried by rail (large vans / class3 HGVs driven straight on and transported, rather than artics clogging up the motorways ? ).

 

Given the wider body, would locos like the Deltic / Class 37 have been designed, when all the equipment could be contained between the cabs (as with virtually every other diesel loco)? 

 

Would we have had more forms of railcars ?

 

Given the wider width, would we have had shorter, higher speed, more frequent trains, so no 15+ coaches heading to Cornwall or Edinburgh ?

 

Given we might have had more freight on the rails, would the Beeching Report been much different, and not closed do many rural lines ?

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2 hours ago, Kris said:

If we have had a 7ft gauge I suspect that there would be far more freight on the rails, possibly in the form of wagons to drive vehicles on and off of. The wider gauge would give the stability to drive on and off the sides speeding loading and unloading. 

 

The issues with freight are generally HEIGHT not width!

 

There are a number of 'broad gauge' bridges that have had to be rebuilt to accommodate overhead wires or freight as a result.

 

Also you should note that the USA copes fine with standard gauge despite the loading gauge allowing grater widths (as well as height)

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28 minutes ago, Stubby47 said:

 

7ft gauge is much more stable, and would probably have needed larger radius curves, so would we have had a need for HS1 ?

I like Kris's idea that freight would still be more commonly carried by rail (large vans / class3 HGVs driven straight on and transported, rather than artics clogging up the motorways ? ).

 

 

 

Double stack container trains (sometimes running over relatively tight curves) happens every day in the USA despite it using standard gauge track but having a significantly wider and higher loading gauge proving that track gauge has relatively speaking NOTHING to do with the ability of rail to transport HGVs

Edited by phil-b259
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15 minutes ago, Stubby47 said:

7ft gauge is much more stable,

 

That was one of the many misconceptions that Brunel laboured under. One shouldn't be too hard on him though; he was trying to re-think the whole idea of a railway from scratch at a time when there was very little practical experience to draw on and that confined to the Stephensons' circle. He was going with the majority view in believing a low centre of gravity (relative to the gauge) to be essential - in fact this is a bad thing, since the transverse forces on the rails are a greater proportion of the total forces. 

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1 minute ago, Compound2632 said:

He was going with the majority view in believing a low centre of gravity (relative to the gauge) to be essential - in fact this is a bad thing, since the transverse forces on the rails are a greater proportion of the total forces.

 

So derailments are more likely (unless deeper flanges were used), but once derailed there would be more likelihood the rolling stock would stay upright ?

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1 minute ago, Stubby47 said:

So derailments are more likely (unless deeper flanges were used), but once derailed there would be more likelihood the rolling stock would stay upright ?

 

General wear and tear on the track, which is good at supporting vertical forces but weaker in the horizontal plane. 

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Just now, Compound2632 said:

 

General wear and tear on the track, which is good at supporting vertical forces but weaker in the horizontal plane. 

 

But given larger radius curves, would this compensate for the additional lateral forces ?

 

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Just now, Stubby47 said:

 

But given larger radius curves, would this compensate for the additional lateral forces ?

 

 

To a degree - but as we know sharp curves abound on early railways due to opposition from politically important landowners or the need to follow contours to keep gradients low and minimise on expensive engineering works.

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1 minute ago, Stubby47 said:

That's a whole separate subject, bringing in lots more questions  - I'd like to try to keep this thread on track with 7ft gauge (if possible...)  

 

 

I'm sorry you baulked at my mention of 3'6" gauge! But thinking about why a narrower gauge wasn't adopted might cast some light on the question of why the wider gauge was a failure; after all, 5'6" gauge took root in many places where railway development was financed by British capital.

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10 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

He was going with the majority view in believing a low centre of gravity (relative to the gauge) to be essential - in fact this is a bad thing, since the transverse forces on the rails are a greater proportion of the total forces. 

 

Sorry to go off topic, but I've seen this stated before and it makes no physical sense to me.  Can someone direct me to an explanation?

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3 minutes ago, Stubby47 said:

 

But given larger radius curves, would this compensate for the additional lateral forces ?

 

 

I don't think so, much. Those forces are still present on straight track - hunting etc. It is generally only on very tight curves, taken at slow speed, that the flanges play a role in guiding the wheels - ordinarily it's the coning that does this. A mile radius at standard gauge does not need to be a mile and a half radius at 7 ft gauge.

 

In the earlies, with engines with low centre of gravity, there would be a tendency to waddle that would be particularly detrimental.

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4 minutes ago, Flying Pig said:

 

Sorry to go off topic, but I've seen this stated before and it makes no physical sense to me.  Can someone direct me to an explanation?

 

Try drawing out a force diagram.

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I think there would be quite a dramatic effect on steam locomotive design.  With a much wider distance between the wheels, there would be far less constraint on firebox design - would there have been the need to fit pony trucks as in Pacifics and Atlantics etc. to get a wide firebox to fit?  Also much bigger inside cylinders would be possible, so would we perhaps have inside cylinder 4-6-0's instead of 3 or 4 cylinder Pacifics as the preferred passenger loco type?  Does this even mean that GWR preferring 4-6-0 was maybe even a carried over legacy from broad gauge days which Welsh steam coal enabled to perpetuate?

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22 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

 

I'm sorry you baulked at my mention of 3'6" gauge! But thinking about why a narrower gauge wasn't adopted might cast some light on the question of why the wider gauge was a failure; after all, 5'6" gauge took root in many places where railway development was financed by British capital.

 

I'm probably more interested in how designs might have been changed, as Titan has proffered, than the actual reasons for non-adoption of failures of the wider gauge.  :)

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5 minutes ago, Stubby47 said:

 

I'm probably more interested in how designs might have been changed, as Titan has proffered, than the actual reasons for non-adoption of failures of the wider gauge.  :)

 

But before you can even consider such ideas, the validity of the premise is in question.

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Just now, Compound2632 said:

 

But before you can even consider such ideas, the validity of the premise is in question.

 

Surely the fact that the GWR was broad gauge and worked proves the validity of the concept ?

 

Seriously, I'm not trying to argue here with anyone's ideas of what's actually possible, for any reasons such as infrastructure changes, physical limitations, just what if we'd adopted 7ft, how would loco & rolling stock designs have evolved ?

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3 minutes ago, Stubby47 said:

Surely the fact that the GWR was broad gauge and worked proves the validity of the concept ?

 

But it didn't work. It's abandonment was principally down to commercial pressures but there were sound engineering reasons why it was less successful in the long run than Stephenson gauge - the concept was not valid and much of the engineering detail was flawed - the baulk road being the prime example, being too rigid. But again, Brunel shouldn't take too much stick for that as early on everyone thought a rigid foundation was desirable - hence the stone blocks used on many early lines - until Locke showed that the more yielding road obtained with transverse timber sleepers gave a ride.

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We've all grown up with 4' gauges, so it's natural. If we had grown up with 7' gauge, the prospect of a 'skinny' gauge would be interesting, but not 'standard. 

 

Hitler had an idea for 3 metre gauge.  In reality, if 7' gauge was recognised as the European standard,  then Messrs Hitler & Speer might well have used it as their standard. 

 

Leading on from that, Russia  might well have  adopted  a gauge of 3.5 metres. ...

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