Now here is a good idea

[Hugh Jampton]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Mark W. Hemphill

If you were building railroads from scratch and could pick any gauge you wanted, you'd still pick something very close to what we have now: it's a very good compromise between all the tradeoffs of cost of construction, cost of materials, utility, and efficiency.

Plenty of railroads that are disconnected and newly built in recent years have been able to select any gauge they wanted, and still chose standard gauge, e.g., the Black Mesa & Lake Powell; the iron-ore roads in Australia's Pilbara region. That indicates there was no overwhelming reason to change.

A lot of the reasoning behind this is economies of scale for wheelsets, truck frames etc.

It can be proven using the kinematic equations for a rigidly coupled wheelset that a wider gauge is better in terms of maximim speed. You are, however, still limited by the maximum axle load. This would mean tha a 150 ton coal car at 7' gauge would be about 20' long.

[adrianspeeder]

I had oj coming out my nose this morning from laughing when i read this. [8D]Maybe the rrs should go to washington and ask for the money to do this project.[;)] They should send all the money for the project to my house by building a 8 foot rr right to my door[:D][:D][:D]

Adrianspeeder

[Anonymous]

Oh, and by the way, remember the 'success' of the chineese Maglev [(-D][oops]

[Anonymous]

Something for truckers to remember:
Without trains in the current guage, supplies wouldn't be able to be transported fast enough for early autos and trucks to be constructed. The current width not only allows for slimmer trains, costing less to make bridges and cuts, and allow multiple trains to run in the same space as Main street, taking more cargo at once under a certain amount of power, at the same (or higher) speed, longer distances than a line of trucks on the highway!

Also think about this: in less space, you can build a one track ROW, that can take trains in either direction with up to and over 100 carloads of freight (With the help of good signaling and a dispatcher), while in a much wider space, you need more supplies and space to built a 1 lane road that can take one truck at a time in one direction per side.

Also think about the fact that it is eisier for a trucker to make a mistake and flip the truck, than for an engineer to screw up and wreck the train, because the train can't be swerved, just put into emergency, and if the train does derail, half the cargo is spilled than what would be wasted in a wider guage train.

And yes, it would cost a lot, not only because of the expanding of the rails, but also the replacement of the hundreds of thousands (Or millions, not sure) of pieces of rolling stock!

Just my views on the rail/trucking & wider rail topics!

[BaltACD]

The writer has some positive elements, especially coming from a trucker.

Howver, guage is not where money needs to be spent.

The freight railroads of this country - BUILT THE COUNTRY. Over the years the citys and towns that the railroads benefited have grown and overgrown the railroad and have them hemmed in all major metropolitan areas. In the big cities, railraods can't expand their facilities - even if they had the money and wanted to.

Railroad right of ways were laid out by surveyors on horse back who viewed their route based on two precepts....how small a grade can be achieved with the minimum amount of earth moving as the mean to move earth was manpower, pick, shovel, black powder and mules or horses. That got the job done in the 19th Century.

Last I looked we are now in the 21st Century....The means and ability to move earth are far beyond anything those 19th Century 'engineers' could even dream of.

The railroads in the US are justifiably proud of building and owning their own infrastructure with private capital. It has become time for the railroads to get involved with local, state and federal governments to rationalize and improve the railroads infrastructure for the benefit of BOTH the local areas and the railroads.

The Chicago corridor plan is a start in this direction, however there are many such projects around the country that need to be attacked. The CSX Tunnel fire in Baltimore in 2001 caused traffic to travel in excess of 500 miles to move from one side of the city to the other, while the tunnel was shut down.

Atlanta was a railroad hub from the days of the Civil War with many carriers using the town as their terminus. With the growth of the city those Civil War era routes have been cast in place by surrounding development. With the coming of the NS & CSX mergers the multiple railroads that all terminated in Atlanta had to be formed into two operating entities. What were once only, interchange routes between the various railroad terminals became 'main tracks' for the combined railroads and have thus become a speghetti nightmare for trying to operate through traffic.

Pick your metropolitan area. Significant improvements are necessary for the benefit of both the metropolitan area and the railroads.

The time is now for the railroads to start playing politics and get governmental support for their needs.

[Anonymous]

If you were building railroads from scratch and could pick any gauge you wanted, you'd still pick something very close to what we have now: it's a very good compromise between all the tradeoffs of cost of construction, cost of materials, utility, and efficiency.

Plenty of railroads that are disconnected and newly built in recent years have been able to select any gauge they wanted, and still chose standard gauge, e.g., the Black Mesa & Lake Powell; the iron-ore roads in Australia's Pilbara region. That indicates there was no overwhelming reason to change.

What the writer didn't realize is that freight cars aren't too small, in reality, they're for most shippers too large. Very few shipments justify anything with the capacity of a boxcar, and the trend is toward smaller and smaller shipments to ever more finite endpoints. That's why trucks are so successful.

[M636C]

Guys,

The original writer didn't even get his hero's name right!

That should be "Isambard Kingdom (I.K. to his friends) Brunel"

Yes, I have noticed that U and J are the letters just to the left of the ones he meant to type, but it does give you an idea of the trouble he went to to get his arguments correct!

[ironhorseman]

So many flaws I don't know where to begin.

1) Cost to upgrade: too much. From building the freight cars and locomotives to widening the rails. All the materials would have to be constructed, the MOW vehichles would have to be rebuilt, all the cars would have to be rebuilt. New freight cars would have to be designed from stratch. New tools would have to be made. The car and engine shops would have to be rebuilt to hold wider loads. The freight yards would be twice as wide as they are now.

2) Widening the rail cars: wouldn't the car need to be reinforced to support all that weight? A 10-foot long axle, wouldn't that be bent by the heavier loads? And the freight cars would be heavier being bigger. And being bigger they have more space to hold more goods, but the weight all adds up. The roadbeds would have to be tougher.

3) On top of all this traffic would have to be rerouted while routes would be reconstructed, stressing out other lines taking on all these extra loads.

It was reported in Time Magazine that BNSF just spent $2 million/mile lay 600 miles of track to double track many of it's routes. I can't imagine any railroad going along with the idea of widening it's rails. It would bankrupt every railroad many times over just to do it.

The way has already been set for over 150 years now. I don't think it would've been practical to do a 10-foot gauge even from the outset. And I don't know too many railroads that are over 5 feet.

[mudchicken]

What do you expect from an ex- trucker?

(1) Did he ever hear of the Erie? (Original Gage 6'-0", "broad gauge")....

(2) At $1.5 million a pop, how many highway over/under passes are we gonna re-build?

(3) hitler had a similar idea...(never carried it out, made a mess of a continent or three instead - along with killing several million)

(4) the earthwork costs would be out the roof plus all the new railroad bridges, pipes & culverts...

(5) All the current ties can't become landscape timbers.....

Better solution: ask the truckers to start paying their way and quit having the government subsidize their freedom of movement. Traffic would move back to the railroads.

[Anonymous]

During the Second World War Adolph Hitler became obsessed with grandiose engineering projects and planning his vision for a rebuilt Europe after what he felt was the inevitable German Victory. One of his obsessions was the design of broad gauge super railroad(he proposed a 4 meter track gauge, but the requirement was ultimately set at 3 Meters(over 9 feet)) connecting occupied France with the German Heartland and running east into conquered Soviet territory, ultimately crossing the entire continent of Europe. He ordered surveying and design work on the line,including blueprints for mammoth motive power and rolling stock to run on it(including designs for 18,000HP three unit Diesel Electrics and Compound Articulated Steam engines that would have been the equivalent of two C&O Alleghenies linked by a Santa Fe 2-10-4!). Although most railway engineering experts in Germany at the time thought the idea was impractical and wasteful, they did as the Fuhrer ordered, diverting time and resources from wartime efforts, and quite possibly helping the Allies win the war faster. I have an old(1981 or so) issue of TRAINS with an article about the scheme.
I also have a copy of TRAINS from the mid Seventies in which there is an article about the concept of a double track train, that is , extra wide rolling stock that runs on two parallel sets of track, giving an effective gauge of twelve feet! The author of the article even built some HO scale models of different types of equipment, including gondolas, intermodal(TOC and COFFEE) flats, and two level passenger/auto carriers(parking on the lower level and passenger accommodations above. The article mentioned previous broadgauge proposals, including a TTX patent from the mid 1960's for a dual level Auto train running on an 8 foot gauge.
Although fascinating none of these schemes ultimately proved economical or practical..............

[jeaton]

WHATEVVERRR!!!

[Anonymous]

Now theres a Brilliant Idea,

Fact: Let's Widden All Railraods,

Hidden fact: It would cost so much money, WOW!

DARWIN AWARD TIME!

[tree68]

Next we'll widen all the roads to handle 18' wide trucks, plus make the roads capable of handling huge loads (you know, thick pavement and all that). And who wouldn't want a car that seats 6 - in the front seat?

In one sense, though, he has a point. A wider guage would be capable of handling more, and might be more stable. On the other hand, the return on investment will be somewhere around the year 2525. By that time we'll have Star-Trek type transporters...

Better we use the plant we have better. Some routes may be saturated, but not all. Even in a perfect world, there will be a reason for trucks. The rails don't go everywhere (and never have), and many businesses have no need for the volume that rail can provide. From what I've read and seen, the railroads are settling into doing what they do best - high volume, long distance. There may be a way to better balance rail vs trucks in the middle ground, but it's gonna take some work.

[JoeKoh]

Interesting but it would take possibly trillions of dollars for the railroads to do.Money that they and the govt doesnt have.

[adrianspeeder]

This letter to the editor was in the local paper this morning. What the heck is this dude thinkin'[?][?][?] Let me know what you think of this.

http://www.pennlive.com/search/index.ssf?/base/news/1078914819102310.xml?pennletters

Adrianspeeder