The gauges used in India are 5'6", metre, 2'6" and 2'. There is no standard gauge there. Metre gauge was chosen in 1872 by the Viceroy, Lord Mayo. A draft bill was before the Indian Government at that time to introduce metric weights and measure, so metre gauge was chosen to conform with this proposal. It was, however, another 86 years before India went metric.
The main gauges used in Australia are 5'3", standard, 3'6" and 2'. The name "Ghan" originated during the laying of the south to north line to Alice Springs, not the Transcontinental line from east to west.
Cheers,
Mark.
Dave-the-Train wrote:...historically you need to add to this that for the US as well as Europe draft animals provided most power to move anything up to 1940... with the trains picking up where horses, mules, oxen and donkeys left off. Even the USA was not an internal combustion engine economy until after 1945...
...historically you need to add to this that for the US as well as Europe draft animals provided most power to move anything up to 1940... with the trains picking up where horses, mules, oxen and donkeys left off. Even the USA was not an internal combustion engine economy until after 1945...
63,000 cars were sold in the US in 1908, 356,000 in 1912, and 900,000 in 1915. In 1917, when motor carriers were brought under regulation in California, 500 separate bus companies filed their tariffs with the regulatory commission. In 1916 there were 326,000 trucks registered in the US, by 1926 there were 2,766,222...
My reference for these figures is "The Electric Interurban Railways in America", by Professor George W. Hilton.
vsmith wrote: To add to Marks commentsthe Stockton and Darlington wagon carts, like most trams at the time, were built to haul coal or slate, a heavy commodities. If the wagons were too wide, the axle split, if they were too big, the horse couldnt pull it. So over the years from the time they were started, the cart builders came up with A: a cart that was wide enought to carry a decent load without breaking, B; that was small enough for a horse to pull, and in doing so came up with a wheel gauge that accomodated the largest wooden axle that could carry the load, and still allow a horse to walk between the rails without stumbling on the wooden rails, I firmly beleive it had nothing to do with chariots are anything like that, but that it was a horses backside that gave us 4 ' 8 1/2", it was just a trail and error guage that worked, and it stuck.
Ignoring the fact that the reasons were probably not reasons but chance and it's all lost in the mists of time...
It's interesting that you mix coal and slate... The Stockton and Darlington was a coal road and one of the roads that - somehow or other - resulted in us having standard gauge.
On the other hand the Ffestiniog Railway was built as a 60cm line to get Welsh Slate down a twisty turny route from the quarries at Bleanau Ffestiniog to Porth Madog on the coast using gravity all the way. The wagons were hauled back up to the quarries by horses walking in the 2'way... there's photos of them doing it. Once at the top the horses rode back to the harbour in end-loaded horse cars that were tacked on the back of a string of loaded slate wagons. Traffic grew so much that steam locos were introduced for the uphill run. The experts of the day said that they couldn't even work let alone do the job required. (Interesting when you see a South African Rly NG G16 at work... It's a 2-6-2 + 2-6-2 Garratt... about the biggest 2' gauge loco in regular fleet service in the world).
Welsh slate railways varied in gauge from 60cm through 2' and 2'3" to 2'4.25". The Welshpool and Llanfair was also 2'6". As far as I know all other non-pleasure railways in Wales were standard gauge. There have been several 15" gauge "toy" railways.
OOPS! The Dinorwic Quarries also had 2 (IIRC) 4' gauge steam locos that hauled 60cm gauge slate trams on transporter wagons. One of these locos was bricked into its shed and lost for many years only to be discovered and now preserved.
I think that a committee probably sat around pondering what gauge would cause the most confusion and difficulty to explain... they're probably still in session somewhere in the depths of the Pentagon or on Capitol Hill. Meanwhile standard gauge was just an accident.
There's a well-researched study at: http://tafkac.org/misc/railroad_gauge.html
I quote herewith:
Well I'm sure if you wandered over to a newsgroup full of railway archeology enthusiasts, you would find that at the time steam trains were first being developed there were a very large number of "standard" gauges in use. Oh god I'm going to be sad and find a book for the A.F.U. maxim to provide references....
First reference that springs to hand : O.S.Nock, World Atlas of Railways, 1978 (ISBN:086134 003 5). Chapter 1. Goes into great length about the use of (horse/human powered) railways in mines in England/Germany 18th century ...hmm, several gauges and types of rail mentioned...19th century...blaa blaa Stockton & Darlington blaa blaa; first Russian railway 6ft; GWR (england, brunel) 7ft 1/4 inch; "1846: Despite the difficulties that had arisen in England from a _diversity_ (my emphasis) of rail gagues, in North America many lines were built in the early days with different gauges both in Canada and in the USA. In the latter the situation was not finally resolved until after the end of the Civil War, when some lines in the southern states were converted to the European and N.American standard of 1,435 mm (4ft 8 1/2 inches)". Talk about the 1840's "Guage War".
Okay not early enough for what you want...Lets try Railway Archaeology, O.S.Nock, 1981 (no ISBN). Chapter 1. First railways, Causey Arch, 1725 (!), [102 foot span stone bridge] "2 tracks of 4 feet gauge abreast of each other...woodern rails 6 to 7 inches wide by 5 inches deep, spaced to provide a rail gauge of 4 feet." - This is cited in the middle of long discussion about the use of early railways/plateways in the transportation of mining.
What else? J.B.Snell, Early Railways, 1964, (no ISBN). Oh this is better. Opening paragraph : "There are 2 elements in the definition of a railway. One is the specially prepared track, designed to carry heavy loads with reduced friction; the other is the system of guidance which makes it unnecessary for vehicles to be steered. Defined in this way, railways are very much older than most people realise. One of the differences between ++GREEKS++ and ++ROMANS++ was that, while the Romans laboured greatly to build roads all over Europe, the Greeks characteristically saw no reason why they should go to the troble of forming flat stone surfaces ten feet side or more when two narrow ruts carved into the rock would serve the purpose. _These_ rutways were the ancestors of railways; they provided a smooth and relatively friction-free running surface, combined with guidance for the wheels. From remains in various places around the Mediterranean it can be seen that their engineering was also quite sophisticated. There were sidings and passing loops, and the tracks ran wherever possible along contours to preserve a level grade."...Lots more talk about 17th century feeder railways for the canals...Richard Trevithick builds first steam powered locomotive 1804 on a plateway with a 4' 2" gauge...Wylan railway 5' gauge...etc etc ...mention is made that R.Stephenson (fan of 4'8" cos that was the one he used) built several locos for export to the USA for the first railways (only one ever made it there though, reliability not being too high...)
So maybe you should blame the Greeks not the Romans? :-)
One last reference as we still haven't got a satisfactory answer as to where Robert Stephenson got 4'8" from...Jack Simmons "The Railways of Britain" 1961+1986 (ISBN 0-333-41990-1) chap.1 (again) "The expansion of the railways encountered some difficult problems. The tacks had not been constructed to a single gauge. In the early days several had been tried. The 4'8" of the northern coal lines, _adopted in the days of horse traction_, had always been used by the Stephensons, and it _ruled without question throughout the North of England_ and, with some exceptions, in Scotland. But as engineers began to think about railways in the 1830's, this gauge encountered its critics. That it had been _found suitable_, by _long experience_, for _horses working on colliery lines_ did not prove its fitness for the steam locomotive...blaa blaa Brunel again... Ireland adopted the gauge of 5' 3", still standard today. [Oooh this has a reference : "The Stephensons' 4'8" prevailed over most of Europe, though wider gauges were adopted in Russia (5') and Spain (5'6"). The USA showed a remarkable _diversity_ of gauges, from 4'8 1/2" to 6', and this diversity proveded a serious handicap to its economnic development - see G.R.Taylor and I.D.Neu, "The American Railroad Network, 1861-90" (1956) and, for a general survey, L.Day, "Broad Gauge" (1985)]
So we have some evidence that the northern coal workings, which are very near (part of) Hadrian's Wall, used 4'8" because that worked best with horses pulling coal waggons. But the Romans built smooth roads, not rutways, even if over 1000 years earlier. And I can say from personal experience that traditional agricultural carts and other horse-drawn carriages built in Southern England are all sorts of different width - every area had its own style.
I also think the comments about Roman War Chariots are way out. I'm not convinced they were built to one standard, but anyway, the Romans kept their roads smooth. After the Romans "left", we had the "dark ages" (note the quotes!), during which time there would have only been a small amount of cart-traffic (in comparison to the Roman period), of short distance to market-towns mostly, so a standardised rut would have had great trouble developing! But this is definatly better discussed with your Classics group.
And where I live (Buckinghamshire) there are lots and lots of medieval tracks, the biggest being the "Ridgeway". There is no tradition of building 4'8" gauge carts, though...
p.s. Re: the big railway discussion above - I got a lot of train books when I was a kiddy, I had to find them in a box in the attic, OK?
Richard "So my great-grandfather was a surveyor on the first trans-Canada railway, but we don't think _he_ was responsible for dynamiting the salmon runs..." B. -- Richard Bowles.
From: nobody@roadie.demon.co.uk Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban Subject: Re: Roman RR Ruts Date: Thu, 17 Oct 1996 23:52:22 GMT
In message <1996Oct16.093435@vms.ocom.okstate.edu> you scribbled:
> ISTR reading a railway history book that attributed Stephenson's gauge to > the fact that he was employed in the Northumbrian coal fields ( way aye mun > ) early in his career (Wylam???) and the coal master was a "fan" of Ancient > Rome ( especially with Hadrian's Wall being near by) and the mines were all > gauged to 4ft 8.5 inches. Of course early ironways were horse drawn so the > physical requirements would be similar to Roman chariots....
Did I say in my earlier post that it was *originaly* 4ft 8 inches, the extra 1/2 inch was only added in the 1840's because of problems with flanges and friction (there are whole chapters on different ways of making wheels move along some sort of pre-laid guidance system...and that's not me being silly with words just pointing out that there are a lot of other ways than outer-flanged wheels on tracks shaped like wot you know now...) Unfortunatly none of them really talk about *why* Stephenson settled on 4'8" beyond it was the one used at Killingworth which was where he worked before starting the Stockton and Darlington Railway in 1821 [...look what you've made me do, I've got one of my books out again...]
"George Stephenson was born in 1781, in a house which still stands beside Wylan railway..." that's his only connection given with that line...
"William Hedley, of the Wylam colliery, a few miles west of Newcastle, was the next man to build a locomotive. The Wylam Railway, a wooden line of great antiquity, had justbeen rebuilt as a FIVE-FOOT gauge PLATEWAY, and for it in 1813 Hedley built his famous Puffing Billy...." "...around 1830 the Wylam line was rebuilt as a FIVE-FOOT gauge RAILWAY..."
Also, because it is said in great length and I'm not going to type in several pages of stuff, that what the TRACK is made of determines the axle width - metal rails only became practical around the turn of the century (1800's) as manufacturing techniques improved, and wooden rails had to be much thicker, hence the distance between wheels was less than that for the same size waggon/cart on metal rails.
Early mining railways were *not* all 4'8" (I said this last time I'm sure), *not* all in Northumberland (South Wales, Germany, France...) and Hadrians Wall could hardly be cited as making someone want to copy a system that the romans may-or-may-not have used - and to the 1/2 inch?! - If the people on the Classics list can't answer that one do you really expect someone in 17th/18th century northern england to know something so obscure?. I did however say that 4'8" (not 4'8.5"!) had been found to be a good compromise with horse-drawn carts...but a cart-horse is a very different size to a pit-ponies, and inside the mines humans provided much of the motive power...
If anyone is in York (UK, yes, "Old" York) they could go to the National Railway Museum which I believe has quite a bit on different railway gauges; and then there is Beamish Open-Air Museum near Durham which has a bit on early Northumbrian mining and railways (although its probably buried under mounds of Victoriana and trams to please the kiddies...)
...and I don't think Julius Caesar (etc) would be very impressed with your statement that war chariots were coal trucks! _Please_ go and find a picture of each of these and play "spot the difference"...! (e.g. wheels, number, size, location, thereof; construction; use; contents; method of connection to the motive power; number of horses; etc etc)
AT THE VERY LEAST:
Whether 'Point' - 'Counterpoint' or 'Subjective - objectivity' -
this subject makes an outstanding example of what 'Reverse Engineering' is all about.
Orsonroy
Thanks for the great answer.
I must admit that I slipped up badly and over generalised. I don't think that this is the place to go into a li=ong discussion correcting/debating the points ... but I will print off our two posts and have a good look at them.
Two things I would note...
First. Every time the questions of when covered hoppers came into use or boxcars stopped being used for grain comes up part of the reason given for the long changeover time is that the further reaches of the rail system couldn't handle cars over a certain size and that a lot of elevators were restricted in what they could handle.
Second. The US didn't rescue Europe from a a lousy war of purely European making. IIRC the USA came into the conflict after Pearl Harbour. Both World Wars were the products of history in the same way that Greece, Rome and other Empires declined... and later empires rose.
I think that to discuss other points here would tend to become too open to political interpretation and way too far off topic.
I certainly fnd your perspective interesting and hope that, however "wrong" it may seem, my (rather sketchy / generalised) run down of most of a century is of some interest to you. One interesting thing is that we are (theoretically) both democracies and "on the same side... If we have such varied views of the same thing what goes on when people have a completely different starting point for their view of the world?
And all this was caused by the Romans putting the wheels on their chariots! ...or not
Surfstud31 wrote:The history channel said it comes from the distance between the wheels on a Roman chariot. I never heard such a thing and I couldn't believe it!
I especially enjoy the chariot touch. Except for racing (ala Ben Hur) and processions in Rome, the Romans didn't use chariots.
Enjoy
Paul
Hoo-boy Dave. You've got a typically European view of how America has evolved. We're so radically different from your own history and experiences that most Euros simply can't wrap their heads around it. To wit:
Dave-the-Train wrote:Historically you need to add to this that for the US as well as Europe draft animals provided most power to move anything up to 1940...
Definitely not true of the USA. By the double whammy of the Depression and the Dust Bowl, horses and mules were essentially a thing of the past, and mostly only found in VERY backwards areas of the South (and usually confined to use by minorities). The United States motorized FAST. By the time we entered WWI most of the Doughboys knew how to drive, wheras Europeans up through WWII had to take special courses in all things mechanical. By 1930 we had the starts of NASCAR, hot rods, and monster trucks, and virtually all farms either had, or were quickly saving for, tractors and a model T. Remember, the USA was the first nation to DRIVE to the poorhouse (the Great Depression). In fact, the Dust Bowl was caused BY tractors and plows, not horses and plows.
Even the USA was not an internal combustion engine economy until after 1945. probably the biggest shift to an IC economy came from all the redundent jeeps and army trucks...
There really was never a glut of surplus Army vehicles in civilian hands in this country. We didn't want them, as they reminded us of the latest crappy war we had to bail Europe out of. The VAST majority of military vehicles (800,000 Jeeps, for instance) were either scrapped, kept in the rolls, or sold off to rebuilding nations. You can see this in the photos of the time: if there was a huge number of military vehicles converting the USA into a motorized society between 1945 and 1950, why don't they show up in photos? (refer to the Charles Cushman collection for examples).
The USA was an internal combustion economy by 1925.
also the system had geared up to producing them...
The term "arsenal of Democracy" is no myth. And the reason we WERE the arsenal was because we already HAD the production capabilities to supply a global war, or we could build it QUICKLY. Euros tend to overlook just how FAST we Americans can do things when we really put our minds to it. Even Speer couldn't hope to match ANY of our production numbers.
and both tyres that didn't puncture too easily and slip-paved concrete highways...
Neither bothered us nor stopped us from buying cars. There are LOTS of accounts about cross state travel being counted in the number of punctures the driver had to fix. Model T's came with their own tire repair kit and air pump (manual, of course) as standard equipment. As for paved roads, we had millions of people to put to work during the Depression. Know what the CCC and WPA was doing? Paving roads (asphalt and concrete)
Any increase in size... like from a 40' to a 50' standard box car is not just a matter of making bigger cars. the loading doors on trackside platforms fo warehouses have been built for 40'cars. Tracks are designed to take the heaviset cars of their time.
True for Europe, not for America. Here in the USA we don't care about tradition, history, or the "way it's always been done." Give us profit, newness, and effiencicy. Bigger cars mean less money the railroads have to spend (fewer axle sets for the same length of train, and less friction from fewer axles). The shippers don't care, because most of them won't be around in five years. Those that will be will tear down and build new factories, or will at least knock new holes in existing walls for new doors.
No-one in the 1800s imagines that we would want to run mile long trains of 100ton coal cars... if you'd suggested it they'd have locked you up in the funny farm.
Not true by the end of the 1800s. The entire Mallet concept was embraced by American roads mostly to lower the number of crews required to fuel the drag freight theory of railroading. The Pennsy was famous for this: got to drag a mile long train over Horseshoe Curve? Start hanging 2-10-0s on it until it moved. The ALTON, of all roads, bought 2-6-6-2s in 1906 to use as drag freight engines. American roads had dreamed of mile long freights since the Civil War (ours), and were just waiting for technology to catch up. Short, fast, frequent freights is a more modern thought.
In Britain and Europe ... and America... we kept using horses because we knew horses, horses were available (we knew how to make new ones ourselves and didn't have to go and buy a new one) we could grow their fuel and they did the job in horse sized lumps which were sufficient.
In Europe yes. In America, no. In WWII every European military went to war with horse cavalry, horse drawn artillery, and horse drawn supply trains. By 1938 the US Army was motorizing the entire cavalry arm as quickly as possible (the Artillery was done by 1934, and the Transportation Corps by 1936: I've got the TO&E for all those years). The Army retired the horse cavalry in 1943, with the last mounted actions occuring in the Phillippines in 1942 in Battaan (Philipino cavalry with American officers). We used mules in the Pacific only because we couldn't build helicopters fast enough (yes, the Marines used transport helicopters in WWII).
Vehicles scared the average European in WWII, and they didn't know how to use, drive, or maintain them. German vehicles sucked, and they broke down frequently. If a motor pool unit wasn't handy, they'd just abandon them in place. In the American army, most members knew how to drive, and most had owned a vehicle at some point in their lives. There were enough backyard mechanics in the leg infantry that ANY vehicle could be put back into the line within 24 hours, up to and including burnt-out Shermans.
And horses are MORE expensive than a model T. Henry Ford designed them that way. Before the T, nobody but rich farmers owned more than a single mid-sized draft horse, which was ONLY used to plow. Nobody (in the grand scheme of things) rode, nobody drove, and not many people knew how to do either (especially in the urbanized and industrialized north east). CARS gave us a sense of security, affordability, and most importantly, MOBILITY that the world had never seen before.
We won in europe in part at least because the new internal combustion engine technology had come of age...
It had come of age in the USA by the end of WWI. I ha
Ray Breyer
Modeling the NKP's Peoria Division, circa 1943
Surfstud31 wrote:I just heard this on the history channel and couldn't believe it. The question is, how did U.S. railroads decide on the standard distance of 4' 8 1/2" between rails?
You know, no one has actually answered the lead question of this thread!
Abraham Lincoln actually decided on standard gauge for the United States, when he signed the Transcontinental Railroad Act into law in 1863 which mandated, among other things, a gauge of 4' 8-1/2". Before then, there were well over a dozen different loading gauges in this country, from 2' to 6' wide. After the Transcon was installed, all other roads had to either convert, go bankrupt, or be in such a niche as to not care.
Oh; Lincoln was a lawyer for the Illinois Central Railroad before he started his career as a politician. The IC was built from the start at 4' 8-1/2".
dinwitty wrote:Also some streetcar railways purposefully used a different gauge for city running to prevent the railroads from running freight down the streets, I think Pittsburgh is 5 foot gauge.
Also some streetcar railways purposefully used a different gauge for city running to prevent the railroads from running freight down the streets, I think Pittsburgh is 5 foot gauge.
How did the US decide on standard gauge, which is the question here?
<> Early US RR history had many gauges. Obviously 4' 8 1/2 inches was used, but so was 3 foot and 2 foot and 5 foot and increments between. There were places on rail lines where there were triple gauge installations to help the transferring of goods and interchange.
But the multi-gauges were fallible and to help with the confusions, the lesser gauge lines regauged or had to go out of business, or were bought out and regauged.
<><>3 foot gauge is prolly the more successful of the lesser gauges as it was suited for mountaneous terrain . BTW the first long tunnel thru a mountain was 3 foot gauge.
<><><>Also some streetcar railways purposefully used a different gauge for city running to prevent the railroads from running freight down the streets, I think Pittsburgh is 5 foot gauge.
and yes, I believe the standard gauge reference did come all the way from roman times, well, the chariot wheels wore grooves into the paths they ran so, hey, run in the groove!!!
But I don't think even in Roman times there was a standard gauge at all as there were old mine works with their own crude rail hoppers, they were pushed, no locos then.
Its just after the turn into the 1800's and the US was new all kinds of technical development was growing so there was a big mix competeing, standard gauge won out.
Dave-the-Train wrote: Surfstud31 wrote:The history channel said it comes from the distance between the wheels on a Roman chariot. I never heard such a thing and I couldn't believe it!Try looking into why we have 24 hours in a day and 60 minutes in an hour...it goes way back beyond the Romans...If you like this sort of stuff and can get the BBC on internet look for a bunch of programmes called "What the Romans did for us" and "What the Ancients did for us". It's amazing what was invented before Hollywood took over creating the world.
Try looking into why we have 24 hours in a day and 60 minutes in an hour...
it goes way back beyond the Romans...
If you like this sort of stuff and can get the BBC on internet look for a bunch of programmes called "What the Romans did for us" and "What the Ancients did for us". It's amazing what was invented before Hollywood took over creating the world.
I will have to check and see if that programme airs on BBC America. Sounds interesting. Thanks for the info.
CNJ831 wrote: nucat78 wrote: Surfstud31 wrote:The history channel said it comes from the distance between the wheels on a Roman chariot. I never heard such a thing and I couldn't believe it!Yeah, I saw that show on THC. As a longtime, regular viewer of THC, TLC and various PBS science shows, be assured that erroneous or misleading info, sometimes just plain nonesense, turns up on many of these shows on a regular basis. I'm afraid that in a great many instances, educational TV is far from it...in fact, it reminds of the degree of accuracy and reliability one often finds on the Internet! ;-))CNJ831
nucat78 wrote: Surfstud31 wrote:The history channel said it comes from the distance between the wheels on a Roman chariot. I never heard such a thing and I couldn't believe it!Yeah, I saw that show on THC.
Yeah, I saw that show on THC.
As a longtime, regular viewer of THC, TLC and various PBS science shows, be assured that erroneous or misleading info, sometimes just plain nonesense, turns up on many of these shows on a regular basis. I'm afraid that in a great many instances, educational TV is far from it...in fact, it reminds of the degree of accuracy and reliability one often finds on the Internet! ;-))
CNJ831
I suppose I should have clarified on my above post. I have also heard and seen where some of the THC programs are garbage. I can't recall specific examples, but remember seeing things on a couple of occasions that was not even close to true. You would be just as well off taking Wikipedia at face value.
wjstix wrote: Supposedly (according to a video I have anyway) the Colorado 3' gauge lines came about because one of the pioneer railroad construction engineers in Colorado was from Switzerland and was familiar with the meter-gauge trains in the Alps, and figured a narrower gauge would work in the Rockies too. BTW speaking of horses - I do recall reading that for many years the British and Irish railways limited themselves to small two-axle freight cars (oops!! I mean "goods wagons") with a max loaded weight of 16 or 18 tons (I think??) because that was the heaviest load a horse could pull on a railway track. Into the 1940's-50's it was still common in rural areas to have a local business or even a small station that still did their 'shunting' with a horse.
Supposedly (according to a video I have anyway) the Colorado 3' gauge lines came about because one of the pioneer railroad construction engineers in Colorado was from Switzerland and was familiar with the meter-gauge trains in the Alps, and figured a narrower gauge would work in the Rockies too.
BTW speaking of horses - I do recall reading that for many years the British and Irish railways limited themselves to small two-axle freight cars (oops!! I mean "goods wagons") with a max loaded weight of 16 or 18 tons (I think??) because that was the heaviest load a horse could pull on a railway track. Into the 1940's-50's it was still common in rural areas to have a local business or even a small station that still did their 'shunting' with a horse.
It wasn't just Britain and our erstwhile colony Ireland but most of Europe. Where as a small country person I have to enlarge my thinking for the US prairies and long haul you need to shrink your thinking for the european scene... all the way to the East border of Poland, Czekoslovakia and Hungary at least (plus the Balkans). We have higher population density and shorter distances. Until we messed up and put traffic onto our roads large tonnage and unit btrains didn't make any sense in most of Europe.
Historically you need to add to this that for the US as well as Europe draft animals provided most power to move anything up to 1940... with the trains picking up where horses, mules, oxen and donkeys left off. Even the USA was not an internal combustion engine economy until after 1945. probably the biggest shift to an IC economy came from all the redundent jeeps and army trucks... also the system had geared up to producing them... and both tyres that didn't puncture too easily and slip-paved concrete highways... there was also political momentum to inject cash into the system so that there wouldn't be another slump the same as after 1918/9.
You also need to realise that when any railway/RR invests in plant it does so to the size that it sees will pay at the time. This is why the British Loading Gauge - the first - is the smallest... the Eu/Berne Gauge comes next and then the US gauges... Russia and China go there own way... this is all in the "Standard gauges". Track... rail-to-rail gauge is not the only gauge to be considered.
Any increase in size... like from a 40' to a 50' standard box car is not just a matter of making bigger cars. the loading doors on trackside platforms fo warehouses have been built for 40'cars. Tracks are designed to take the heaviset cars of their time. No-one in the 1800s imagines that we would want to run mile long trains of 100ton coal cars... if you'd suggested it they'd have locked you up in the funny farm. It was a miracle that steel rails stretched out across the Prairies with steam engines running on them. Diesel didn't exist. Electric light was a miracle.
Then we had WW2.
90% of the great Wehrmacht was horse drawn... or walked... that's why they couldn't keep their elite hydro-carbon powered forces supplied in Russia when the Soviets collapsed backwards scorching the earth as the Tsarist army had done when Napoleon invaded 150 or so years before. The 2nd World war in the West was won on a combination of fodder as well as oil... and the germans struck north toward the political capitals instead of going for the oil fields... History, and our lives, could have been so different.
We won in europe in part at least because the new internal combustion engine technology had come of age... and we had jeeps and a pipeline from the West Coast of England right across into Europe... the bit across the channel being laid in the first days after D Day... right on "Private Ryan's heals.
"Private ryan" rode a new technology as significant as the English long bow, the Samurai sword and the Atom bomb... the Jeep... massed produced vehicles that "anyone" could afford... and I'm not forgetting Henry Ford. Henry Ford produced a niche market. After WW2 production remained set up so that vehicles could be pumped out endlessly... they have changed our planet.
We have changed our planet.
PS post WW2 railways/RR are vulnerable to air power... they can't duck, dodge or hide.
Britain is the largest aircraft carrier the US has got... and it has easy B52 range all the way EAST to Japan. You have no other carrier that can take B52s.
On THC!!!! YIKES!!!
They didn't decide ... they copied the UK.
They also copied the UK for some early smaller lines which were 3' gauge (another British Imperial measurement)... these lines mostly either suceeded and re-gauged to standard or didn't suceed and shut down.
Some US lines tried broad gauges (mosty around 5' 3" I think - again... British measuement).
As I've said before though the key "American" factor in the gauge deciion was Hollywood. 4'8.5" was the best distance for tieing heroines convincingly across the tracks so that ankles and neck would be on the rails. The movie $ rules.
Or, if you want to be boring... the UK/Eu gauge has actually been modified to 4'8.25 (or whatever that is in metric) beacuse the physicists/engineers have worked out that that is the best gauge within an near range of what the early railways probably just fell over because that's what fitted the bits of gear that they were using.
You could probably find other technically efficient gauges (Brunel tried 7'0.25"... why the 0.25"??? It has no equivalent in metric or anywhere).
Spooner went for 1'11 5/8" for the first steam powered narrow gauge railway. A gauge which is actually 60cm.
In India the Raj used mostly std, 1 metre and 5'6"... Why on earth suddenly use metre gauge? They also used 60cm.
In S Africa and other African countries we used 2' and 3'6" (2' NOT 60cm). In Ireland we used 5'3" and 3'.
Australia used std and at least two other Gauges... I think this depended on which State they started in... probably just wanted to argue with each other about what was right. As far as I know they still have several Gauges. (Incidentally camels used in building the big, long east, west route - The Ghan - {'cos it was mainly built using Afgan labour... unlike Chinese and Mexican labour for the SP over Cajun} - meanwhile, back at the camels... when the railway was done they had either escaped or were let loose and now live wild in the desert... bit of luck they don't breed as fast as bunnies or they'd have a real problem). New Zealand went for 3'6" gauge... so did a lot of South America... when it wasn't (Swiss engineered) metre gauge rack rail...
Most Eu countries used std gauge in its metric form but both Spain (Fascist) and Russia (Stalinist... after being Tsarist... not a lot of difference) chose weird gauges on the military theory that an invading army would not be able to use their tracks to advance on... neither seemed to realise that by using a wider gauge all the invading army would have to do was to re-gauge downwards/narrower on the same ties.
When the Germans retreated northwards in 1914 in what is now Namibia they pulled up their 60cm track. This helped the advancing Colonial forces from S Africa... they could stick down their 3'6" on the slightly narrow formation and run their trains straight through. Mind you, when the Germans arrived in Namibia they looked for a nice, easily graded place to put their railway to head from the coast inland... there it was... a nice dry river bed... only things left after the first flash floods were the locos... nice little double enders.
In 1944/45 the retreating German army would rip the track with a plough on one side of the double track and then blow a hole with explosives. they'd then do the other line for the same distance and blow a hole. Pity (for them) that standard British Army railway practice is to work Single Line Working on whatever line is there , regardless of what line or lines are there... we just used undamaged track to put in a wiggle repair and trundled happily on
One each of the USA built Baldwin 4-6-0T and Alco 2-6-2T that were built for the 14-18 Western Front are still running on the Ffestiniog Railway that Spooner engineered. (They've been repaired a couple of times). There's at least one 1940s vintage "Yankee Tank" 0-6-0T still active in this country... last one I saw was on The Kent and East Sussex Railway at Tenterden in Kent.
French and Belgian minor railways and tramways were inclined to metre gauge and a lot of their colonial main trackage was metre gauge. The French Decauville industrial (set of bits) system was 60cm. (I'm pretty sure that the gauge in Vietnam/French Indo-China was 1 metre).
In much of Africa you can tell where it was British Empire by the 3'6" gauge and some other Eu usurpers by the fact that it is metre gauge.
The Railways actually helped stop the slave trade... prior to the railways 99.9% of Europeans... the Portugese were the most common... couldn't go ashore even let alone inland because they had no natural immunity to the West african diseases which were largely transmitted by bugs fom the swamps. Therefore for slaves to arive at the coast there had to be black-on-black action... except where Arabs had taken over the scene. When the railways were pushed inland from the coast to exploit mineral wealth we could take in pumps to drain the swamps, kill the bugs, remove the diseases and stop the slave trade... pretty much in that order. If you look at the map of West Africa most of the countries are long narrow strips running in from the coast... along rivers in some ceases and along railway lines in most... The railways took armies in and supplied them and brought the minerals out.
Have fun with your trains
This is off topic but the question reminded me of the explaination of why the distance between the pitcher's rubber and home plate is 60' 6" and not exactly 60'. In the mid 1800s, there were many versions of baseball played, each with it's own dimensions. It was decided to standardize the way baseball was played under a common set of rules, and surveryor Alexander Cartwright was commisioned to layout the standard diamond. Cartwright intended the distance to be 60' 0" but when he wrote that on the original diagram, the second zero was misread as a 6 and it was written into the official rules that way. So because of Cartwright's poor penmanship, pitcher's have had to throw the ball an extra 6 inches for well over 100 years. I guess that they should be glad he didn't do that to the first zero.
PS. The distance of 60' 6" is the measurement to the back point of home plate. The distance between the rubber and the front edge is about 17 inches less.
marknewton wrote:4'8 1/2" or 1435mm is not a "weird" measurement, it's just the way it is. Nor is it even a particular standard throughout the world - many nations have big rail networks made up entirely of other gauges, either larger or smaller. Examples include 5'0" in Russia, 5'6' in India, Pakistan,Potugal and Spain, 3'6" in Africa, Indonesia, Japan and New Zealand, and extensive metre gauge networks throughout the world, to name a few. The choice of rail gauge was determined by many factors - colony or independent nation, the economic situation, the natural resources to be exploited, who financed the railways, who built them, who owned them, and who supplied locomotives and rolling stock. Or in the case of the US, simply by government decree. Prior to that there were many miles of broad and narrow gauge... Going back to the very origins of railways, you'll find that wooden-railed lines were operating in certain mining districts of England during the reign of Elizabeth I. By the early 18th century where iron was available, iron rails began to replace these wooden pole or baulk roads. Surviving relics and documents indicate a number of gauges were used, ranging from 2' to 6' or more. None of these wagon ways, as they were then known, were in the vicinity of surviving Roman "rutways". While Stephenson favoured 4'8 1/2", Brunel built the Great Western to a gauge of 7' 1/4" - the Romans must have had fat horses down that way... It's significant that this rubbish only does the rounds of the internet, although it predates this medium by many years - I have *NEVER* seen *ANY* reference in any well-researched railway history written by any reputable railway historian that linked the dimension of standard gauge to Roman chariots. And no-one has ever demonstrated any link between chariots, the early railway builders, and the rollingstock they designed and built. I once read an interesting article in a technical journal that suggested the practical limit for making faggoted iron axles in the very earlydays of railways was about five feet in length, in which the author suggested may have been an influencing factor on the gauge. I reckon that there is far more likelihood of it being a practical matter such as this, rather than some asinine twaddle about "war chariots", that influenced the early railway builders. Apart from anything else, from the very beginning there was little commonality between railway wagon design, and that of horse-drawn road vehicles. The main structural member of a horse-drawn vehicle is the body itself, whereas a railway wagon has a strong underframe to withstand buff and draft forces. The road vehicle had fixed axles with the bearing integral with the wheel hub, or the bearing inboard of the wheel. Railway wagons had the wheels pressed onto a revolving axle, with separate bearings and journals, usually outboard of the wheels. Given the divergence in design, it's difficult to see any reason why the early engineers would conform to the dimensions of road vehicles. Cheers, Mark.
4'8 1/2" or 1435mm is not a "weird" measurement, it's just the way it is. Nor is it even a particular standard throughout the world - many nations have big rail networks made up entirely of other gauges, either larger or smaller. Examples include 5'0" in Russia, 5'6' in India, Pakistan,Potugal and Spain, 3'6" in Africa, Indonesia, Japan and New Zealand, and extensive metre gauge networks throughout the world, to name a few. The choice of rail gauge was determined by many factors - colony or independent nation, the economic situation, the natural resources to be exploited, who financed the railways, who built them, who owned them, and who supplied locomotives and rolling stock. Or in the case of the US, simply by government decree. Prior to that there were many miles of broad and narrow gauge...
Going back to the very origins of railways, you'll find that wooden-railed lines were operating in certain mining districts of England during the reign of Elizabeth I. By the early 18th century where iron was available, iron rails began to replace these wooden pole or baulk roads. Surviving relics and documents indicate a number of gauges were used, ranging from 2' to 6' or more. None of these wagon ways, as they were then known, were in the vicinity of surviving Roman "rutways". While Stephenson favoured 4'8 1/2", Brunel built the Great Western to a gauge of 7' 1/4" - the Romans must have had fat horses down that way...
It's significant that this rubbish only does the rounds of the internet, although it predates this medium by many years - I have *NEVER* seen *ANY* reference in any well-researched railway history written by any reputable railway historian that linked the dimension of standard gauge to Roman chariots. And no-one has ever demonstrated any link between chariots, the early railway builders, and the rollingstock they designed and built.
I once read an interesting article in a technical journal that suggested the practical limit for making faggoted iron axles in the very earlydays of railways was about five feet in length, in which the author suggested may have been an influencing factor on the gauge. I reckon that there is far more likelihood of it being a practical matter such as this, rather than some asinine twaddle about "war chariots", that influenced the early railway builders.
Apart from anything else, from the very beginning there was little commonality between railway wagon design, and that of horse-drawn road vehicles. The main structural member of a horse-drawn vehicle is the body itself, whereas a railway wagon has a strong underframe to withstand buff and draft forces. The road vehicle had fixed axles with the bearing integral with the wheel hub, or the bearing inboard of the wheel. Railway wagons had the wheels pressed onto a revolving axle, with separate bearings and journals, usually outboard of the wheels. Given the divergence in design, it's difficult to see any reason why the early engineers would conform to the dimensions of road vehicles.
Cheers, Mark.
Like I said, it's simply another case of form follows function.
TomDiehl wrote: KlickyMobster wrote:The explanation from my PHD history teacher is that it comes from the roman gauge of roads. The roman gauge of roads came from the width of two donkey butts. Eventually, one of those roman mathematicians determined the average width of two donkey butts. Then, England, being under rule by the Romans, adopted the Roman standard for roads. This also resulted as the same standard for rails. That standard was used in America because A) Most people in those days were from England and B) The first locomotives came from England. So there you have it!The biggest flaw in this story: standard gauge didn't exist at that point in time (your A and B examples above).
KlickyMobster wrote:The explanation from my PHD history teacher is that it comes from the roman gauge of roads. The roman gauge of roads came from the width of two donkey butts. Eventually, one of those roman mathematicians determined the average width of two donkey butts. Then, England, being under rule by the Romans, adopted the Roman standard for roads. This also resulted as the same standard for rails. That standard was used in America because A) Most people in those days were from England and B) The first locomotives came from England. So there you have it!
The biggest flaw in this story: standard gauge didn't exist at that point in time (your A and B examples above).
Actually, that's the SECOND biggest flaw in the story. The first is the way the teacher convolutedly explained the width of Roman roads. He (probably being some form of hippie) thought that the roads were built for peaceful purposes. Hah! Roman roads were designed for one thing: to make marching of their Legions easier and faster. The standard width of a Roman road is based on six men across, the standard column formation of the Legions.
Roman roads were NOT rutted when they ruled Europe. Ruts slow down Legions as the men have to avoid tripping in them. Slave labor was cheap in the Empire, so they made sure that road crews were out refularly keeping the roads smooth. Once the Empire fell and the Dark ages took over, everyone kept using the roads but no one maintained them. Ruts formed AFTER the Romans.