villevalla t1_iyinhnb wrote
Reply to comment by kokopilau in TIL that the southern United States converted all 11,500+ miles of its railroads from broad gauge (5 ft/1.524 m) to nearly-standard gauge (4 ft 9 in/1.448 m) in just 36 hours, starting on May 31, 1886 by 1859
There actually wouldn't be a lot saving, that's why gauges aren't unified. Where is the saving if, for example, Finland and Japan were to use the same gauge? Or Mexico and Turkey? Or Russia and Eswatini?
InfernalCorg t1_iyj0e6s wrote
> Where is the saving if, for example, Finland and Japan were to use the same gauge?
You can build the same model of train for both. Yes, it's not a huge issue, but standardization is generally a better than the alternative in industrial fields.
PublicSeverance t1_iyj8s6p wrote
The same train model can still be sold anywhere.
It takes a few hours to 1/2 a day in order to change the wheels (bogies) on an entire train and all the carriages.
CyborgElephant t1_iyjdces wrote
Or this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_gauge
But maybe that doesn’t allow the adjustment as dynamically as I’m thinking.
beachedwhale1945 t1_iyjubbg wrote
Even if it does, that’s only viable if the train regularly has to go from one gauge to another. If you sent a train from the US to Brazil, its better to completely change out the bogies than to have a system you don’t need that could fail and cause a crash and thus must be maintained.
ibw0trr t1_iykerhg wrote
>If you sent a train from the US to Brazil, its better to completely change out the bogies
Or... You could containerize things into standard 40' long boxes and transload them to another train or to a big boat.
beachedwhale1945 t1_iymisw4 wrote
The question was about moving the train itself, not the cargo said train may be carrying. For my part in this discussion, the train could be empty or loaded to the brim. In my head I was thinking the engine/cars were cargo on a ship and unloading them via a crane in some port like Rio for use on the Brazilian rail system.
CyborgElephant t1_iyjustj wrote
Did you downvote me? I don’t know anything about trains. In my head I wondered if they had this, and they do. The solution exists, so not sure why it would be “a system you don’t need”, and why it would fail. If any train can go on any track, dynamically, then the size of the tracks don’t matter.
beachedwhale1945 t1_iymiddw wrote
>Did you downvote me?
I generally don't downvote anyone except in extremely rare circumstances. Not considering maintenance or why universal solutions are not needed in all cases are commonplace and not worth my downvote. I use these as teaching points, encouraging you to think about something in a different way.
InfernalCorg t1_iyjeu3b wrote
Of course, but surely economy of scale means it's cheaper to make 70 bogey model As than 40 As and 30 Bs?
V6Ga t1_iykcn3p wrote
Bogies are swapped on trains pretty regularly:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nI467sc-Eo
Add the proven defense advantage in not having a common gauge, and no one is going to standardize rail.
nivlark t1_iylm8ks wrote
If there were only one bogie manufacturer in the world, yes. But in practice the demand for rail vehicles is high enough that countries with different gauge standards can support independent rolling stock industries.
nokangarooinaustria t1_iymfqg0 wrote
Add one or two zeros to those numbers and you are onto something.
The problem here is that trains are expensive and big and reasonably complicated - the differences the change of the wheels makes isn't much compared to the rest of the cost.
And changing all rails in your country most of the times is prohibitively expensive. The cost savings would probably never reach the initial cost of the change.
bobtehpanda t1_iyl7fo7 wrote
The thing is that the markets for the various gauges are so large that they effectively are able to use standards as well.
In the same vein there being a handful of plug socket shapes doesn’t significantly increase the cost of goods using electricity.
DownwindLegday t1_iyiqhyf wrote
There are plenty of countries with one gauge that border a country with a different gauge. They would benefit from having the same standard.
seicar t1_iykd7ev wrote
Or not.
Take Finland for example. It is neither EU nor RU. Fins aren't anit-trade or specifically in love with a set distance between rails. Until recently this has been for a very real reason.
The country has been a fulcrum of neutrality between RU and Scandinavia/EU/NATO for approx. 90 years.
Now a lot of countries had some sort of authoritarian fascism within its population prior to WWII, but the Finns had to embrace Nazis to help hold off USSR. Stalin really really really wanted to put a big red mustache on that area.
After, (and during) if the Finns looked west, then USSR would see a real threat to their north sea ports as well as the major (and at some times capital) city of St. Petersburg. If the Fins went east, then the Baltic would be open for strikes into central EU and Scandinavia. To make a premature TLDR; the Finns were militarized like Israel, not because everyone wanted to kill them, rather they were the Uncle that had an old house in the middle of NYC central park. A desirable location.
Keeping all the outside countries off of major logistical infrastructure is a big positive.
AND... Fin/Swede entering NATO is a big big deal as a consequence of the Ukrainian invasion.
RU, China, East African countries, Central American countries, India, etc. might be a bit smart to make things a bit difficult.
pviitane t1_iynqc6n wrote
Well, actually. Finland has the same gauge as Russia. You see, during the early heydays of rail building, Finland was part of Russian Empire and the building started on the orders of Russian emperor/czar.
Before the Russian invasion, there has been a daily passenger rail connection from Helsinki to St Petersburg and Moscow. There are at least couple of border crossing points where Finnish and Russian rail networks connect so this has surely been taken into account in military defense planning.
V6Ga t1_iykcupk wrote
They would lose defense advantage in having dissimilar gauges.
As noted the Nazis were stopped, in part, by the not being able to use trains in Russia.
lawnerdcanada t1_iyki2ak wrote
Given, for instance, the Russian military's depenence on rail for logistics, threre is, for some countries, real advantage in not sharing a rail gauge with a neighbour.
Bierbart12 t1_iyioctf wrote
Probably the same reason power outlets are so different everywhere
Doggydog123579 t1_iyj59ic wrote
Atleqst for the UK, the outlets are diffrent because ring circuits are an abomination.
ibw0trr t1_iykey35 wrote
I had never heard of this until tech connections did a bit on outlets.
Ring circuits seem like a great idea... Until one end gets broken and the other has to support the full potential amperage.
nivlark t1_iylltpr wrote
They were always just an efficiency measure. Ring mains let you use less copper, which was in short supply in the UK during the post-war years when a lot of housing was being built to replace what had been lost to bombing.
katycake t1_iyli9mb wrote
Yes but, one of these power outlet designs, have got to be the superior one, and not just 'interchangeably good enough'.
Bierbart12 t1_iylivki wrote
Of course. That'd be the plug type F(used in most of Europe, Jordan, South Korea, Indonesia, Thailand, Turkey, Uruguay and Vietnam) that is just two prongs which are always grounded, can be inserted both ways and don't allow flow unless they are fully in the socket, preventing almost all accidents
I don't know enough about other sockets to compare them, but the american one(Plugs A and B) has a funny face and is only sometimes grounded(Type B), which is a bad idea for consumers
Latexi95 t1_iyj5lib wrote
We would happily switch to more standard European gauge here in Finland, if EU would pay for it. Mostly issue is money and lack of need to change. We have train lines to Sweden, which require switching trains on border, but they aren't that hugely popular and important as Lapland has fairly low population density. Only direction that normally has really much need for trains is to Russia, which has "close enough" gauge that suitable trains can work with both rails.
It is hard to sell the changing of gauge politically when the benefits are so small. EU has some ideas about unified train network, and they aren't keen to give money for building for "wrong" gauge, but I doubt they would pay us to change the gauge and trains to European standard...
boysan98 t1_iyk8w2q wrote
Japan specifically had a narrower gauge built originally to cope with the mountainous terrain. You trade capacity for agility. At leas that’s the justification the British used when they designed it for them.
V6Ga t1_iykd36q wrote
Do you know how the gauge helps with terrain?
(Japan might be the only industrial nation that has no need to standardize train gauge with another country, being an island nation.)
nivlark t1_iyllk4s wrote
It's just cheaper. Smaller gauge means smaller earthworks, bridges, tunnels etc.
Mountainous regions of Europe (Switzerland, southern France, the Basque country) also have narrow gauge networks that operate alongside more extensive standard gauge networks.
[deleted] t1_iylmgwf wrote
[removed]
ScoobiusMaximus t1_iym4roj wrote
For those examples sure, there wouldn't be that much direct savings. But if you pick countries that actually have a land border instead of purposefully stupid examples then it facilitates rail transit between those countries a lot more easily.
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