India: why metre gauge, and not 3'3" or 3'6"?

[BachelorBoy]

Why did British imperial railway engineers, in the heart of the British Empire in India, at the height of the British Empire, choose a gauge that wasn’t measured in Imperial units -- namely, one metre --- for so many lines?

 

One metre is 3 foot 3 3/8th inches.

 

Why not choose a nice round number of 3’3”, or 3’6” as in British South Africa and its neighbours, and parts of Australia?

[Darius43]

Here’s your answer

 

Cheers

 

Darius

 

PS my Grandfather was a permanent way engineer with the Great Indian Peninsula Railway.

[009 micro modeller]

2 hours ago, BachelorBoy said:

3’6” as in British South Africa and its neighbours,

However, East Africa (including Kenya) is metre gauge. So is much of South East Asia, including Malaysia (and as a main line gauge, not just for secondary lines like in India).

[whart57]

2 hours ago, BachelorBoy said:

Why did British imperial railway engineers, in the heart of the British Empire in India, at the height of the British Empire, choose a gauge that wasn’t measured in Imperial units -- namely, one metre --- for so many lines? 

 

Similarly why did Dutch railway engineers, from a country where the metric system was established, choose 3'6" in Indonesia? 

[St Enodoc]

1 hour ago, Darius43 said:

Here’s your answer

 

Cheers

 

Darius

 

PS my Grandfather was a permanent way engineer with the Great Indian Peninsula Railway.

Interesting but it doesn't mention the Patiala State Monorail Trainways!

[Darius43]

2 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

Interesting but it doesn't mention the Patiala State Monorail Trainways!

What gauge was that then? 😜

 

Cheers

 

Darius

[BachelorBoy]

4 hours ago, Darius43 said:

Here’s your answer

 

Cheers

 

Darius

 

PS my Grandfather was a permanent way engineer with the Great Indian Peninsula Railway.

Thank you very much.

 

Appreciated.

 

A

[St Enodoc]

28 minutes ago, Darius43 said:

What gauge was that then? 😜

 

Cheers

 

Darius

You have three guesses.

[whart57]

3 hours ago, 009 micro modeller said:

However, East Africa (including Kenya) is metre gauge. So is much of South East Asia, including Malaysia (and as a main line gauge, not just for secondary lines like in India).

 

It does seem that once metre gauge was established in India as an alternative to standard gauge or broad gauge that the export departments of British railway equipment suppliers and their consultants adopted it as the gauge of choice for colonial territories. Meter gauge was the choice in Singapore, Malaya and Burma (Myanmar), and the knock on effect was that when the British got the contract to build the railway from Bangkok to Malaya that was metre gauge too.

 

In the 1920s Thailand converted its standard gauge lines to metre gauge, a decision that doesn't look so clever now the Chinese have built a line through Laos to connect the standard gauge Chinese network to the Thai railways.

[jjb1970]

Vietnam is also primarily metre gauge with some standard and dual gauge (standard, metre) in the North.

[BachelorBoy]

3 hours ago, 009 micro modeller said:

However, East Africa (including Kenya) is metre gauge. So is much of South East Asia, including Malaysia (and as a main line gauge, not just for secondary lines like in India).

There were a lot of  links between British India and British Malaya. The Straits Settlements (Penang, Malacca, Singapore) were administered from India for decades.

 

 

[jjb1970]

The history of Malaysia under British rule is quite interesting as it was a bit like India in maintaining nominal client states alongside imperial possessions for a large part of our colonial rule.

[whart57]

Also interesting is the way the European idea of states with borders clashed with the Asian system of rulers ruling through tribute payments. This was particularly pertinent regarding Thailand, or Siam as it was then, which was surrounded by European colonial possessions. The border between Burma - ruled by the British after the last Burmese king was deposed in 1886 - and Thailand was delineated by whether a tribe paid tribute to Bangkok or Rangoon, as were Thailand's borders with French Indochina and the British ruled Malay states. The southern border with the Malay states was pretty tightly defined as it was in a relatively well populated region. The other borders ran through sparsely populated, or even unpopulated territories.

 

The impacts are still felt today. Peoples from the hill tribes along the Thailand/Myanmar border are often stateless as neither Thailand nor Myanmar recognise them as citizens. Thailand and Cambodia have regular spats - to the extent of guns being used and soldiers being killed - over the Preah Vihear temple. Thailand argue that it was only because of French colonial aggression that the temple lies on the Cambodian side of the border, Cambodia counters that as the temple was built by the Khmers, Siam had annexed it and the French were in fact restoring it to Indochina. And there is an islamist terror group operating in southern Thailand trying to get the muslim majority southern provinces away from Buddhist Thailand and united with the mainly muslim Malaysia. At various times this century trains have been attacked and the SRT has stopped operating in the southern provinces.

 

 

[009 micro modeller]

3 hours ago, Darius43 said:

What gauge was that then? 😜

 

Cheers

 

Darius

Presumably zero - although it has been argued that it’s broad gauge, based on the width from the rail to the outrigger wheel.

 

2 hours ago, whart57 said:

 

It does seem that once metre gauge was established in India as an alternative to standard gauge or broad gauge that the export departments of British railway equipment suppliers and their consultants adopted it as the gauge of choice for colonial territories. Meter gauge was the choice in Singapore, Malaya and Burma (Myanmar), and the knock on effect was that when the British got the contract to build the railway from Bangkok to Malaya that was metre gauge too.

 

In the 1920s Thailand converted its standard gauge lines to metre gauge, a decision that doesn't look so clever now the Chinese have built a line through Laos to connect the standard gauge Chinese network to the Thai railways.

In Africa, some very early pre-Union South African railways were standard gauge as well - they couldn’t have foreseen the Gautrain, or the newer standard gauge networks elsewhere in Africa. There’s a few breaks of gauge where metre meets 3’ 6” (I think this is around Tanzania or somewhere similar?). New Zealand had Irish broad gauge originally - they both got Cape Gauge later on as it was felt this would be more suitable for building a railway through hilly terrain fairly quickly and cheaply.

 

8 minutes ago, whart57 said:

Also interesting is the way the European idea of states with borders clashed with the Asian system of rulers ruling through tribute payments.

Although this was once fairly common in parts of Europe as well, at least in the Middle Ages.

[EddieB]

On 18/09/2022 at 07:19, 009 micro modeller said:

However, East Africa (including Kenya) is metre gauge. So is much of South East Asia, including Malaysia (and as a main line gauge, not just for secondary lines like in India).

The Uganda Railway (starting from Mombasa, Kenya) was built using labour, materials and original locomotives and rolling stock imported from India.

[Grovenor]

On 20/09/2022 at 19:08, EddieB said:

The Uganda Railway (starting from Mombasa, Kenya) was built using labour, materials and original locomotives and rolling stock imported from India.

And the Tanganyika railway was started when it was a German colony, so something of a coincidence that the EAR was all metre gauge. And later EAR steam locos and wagons were built for easy conversion to 3'6" ready for when they linked up to the then Rhodesia Railways. But by the time TAZARA made the link it was to late for the steamers and the gauge conversion has not been done and is now unlikely with Kenya going over to Standard Gauge.