What was the reason for creating a wide or narrow gauge track?

[Euclid]

I always go with "gage."  It is legitimate spelling, and if you can get the job done with four letters, why use five?

[Buslist]

cacole

I think the Russian rail guage is still 5 foot.

 

 

 

Close but not quite. 5' it is 1524mm. Stalin did not like the gage to be an odd number in the Metric system so he ordered the railway regaged to 1520mm. This was accomplished by changing the cant on the tie plates.  The Finnish gage remains at 1524. When asked what gage the Helsinki St.Petersburg trains are built to the answer was 1522mm, a gage that exists nowhere (by design anyway)!

[Buslist]

GDRMCo

Gauge*

 

 

In North American Railway Engineering practice it's GAGE, which my former boss would frequently remind everyone. Check the AREMA Manual for example.

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

There are several gauges that seem to predominate on the world's various railroads:  3', meter, 3'6" (Cape gauge), 4'8.5" (standard), 5', 5'3" and 5'6".  Cape gauge and 5'3" seem to be found primarily in former British possessions.

[gardendance]

I suspect there are many other things besides track width that would prevent anybody interchanging with BART, for example the subway tunnel profile must surely be too small for railroad cars.

[tomikawaTT]

BART may have been carrying on another tradition - political entities requiring the people who wanted to build streetcar lines to use a gauge that would NOT allow interchange.  No freight cars in the streets, thank you.

George Stephenson built the Stockton and Darlington to 4' 8.5" gauge because he had previous experience with coal mine tramways of that approximate gauge and was comfortable with it.  Since he bacame England's premier locomotive builder that set the gauge for most of the early railways in the British Isles as well as some in the Northeastern US.  Brunel derided Stephenson's preference as, "Mine cart gauge," and built his railroads to 7' 1/4" gauge.  Fifty years later those railroads were shrunk to standard gauge by government fiat.

Railroads in the South had been built, mostly, to 5 foot gauge.  The gauge was narrowed in a single mighty effort over about two days in 1886.  At the same time the Erie was narrowed from six feet to standard.  Earlier, Congress had decreed standard gauge for the transcontinental route, using the B&O as a template.

I once found a fascinating list of track gauges ranging from one foot to three meters put together by The Gauge Sage.  Unfortunately, that link no longer works.  (Three meters?  Hitler's idea for a super-railroad, to be built after Germany unified Europe...)

Chuck

[narig01]

FWIW. The reason San Francisco 's BART selected 5'6" is for a better ride. The commonly accepted perception from others was the architects were trying to reinvent the wheel. Thx IGN

[Paul_D_North_Jr]

But "guage" almost universally in financial documents (such as for equipment financing), for reasons that are lost to history.

- Paul North. 

[gardendance]

width

[GDRMCo]

Gauge*

[Euclid]

I would say that standard gage was selected by a general consensus as to what gage is best and which was most popular as the consensus was adopted.  The “best” gage has always been a matter of dispute, but the point is moot once the commitment to it becomes large enough.  The “best” gage changes over time as traffic, engineering, and economics change. 

When this was being decided, there were advocates of narrower gage claiming the economic advantage of a smaller plant, and advocates of wider gage claiming the advantage of ride stability.  When the tug of war ended, “Standard Gage” was the selected choice. 

But it was only based on a consensus, and that consensus that could change over time, even though the gage could not.  And for as complex as the consensus was to formulate, the engineering and economic underpinning was even more complex, and never resolved completely.  In other words, the “best” gage; the quest that drove gage development; was never established.  We cannot say today which gage is “best.”  To the extent that doubt lingers, it assumes that standard gage is too small.  But the horse has left the barn.  It is too late to change gage in the U.S. and most other places as well.   

[PNWRMNM]

You need to look at this from the perspective of 1830, not 2014.

Between 1830 and 1860 railroads were seen as local ventures, to connect an origin, usually a seaport with its hinterland. The Baltimore & Ohio is an example. It was more ambitious than most. The Ohio reference is the Ohio River. The other common vision was to haul a known trafic over country too rough for canals. The Deleware & Hudson started this way with the coal hauling railroad an extensioin of the coal hauling canal company. Under these conditions there was no need for uniformity of gauge, coupler height or a host of other design details. In addition, the industry was one big experiment in the sense that no one knew what would work best.

Since some early locomotives were imported from England, wich used 4' 8.5" gauge, lines planning to import power were built to fit the English equipment. The PRR, chartered in 1845 IIRC, used 4'9" gauge. Many Ohio lines used 4' 10" for reasons now lost to history. Of course many southern lines were 5', but there were also several 4' 8.5" gauge lines in the south. The Civil War demonstrated the cost of multiple gauges on both sides of the Mason/Dixon line.

Our network is standard gauge because that is what was selected by A. Lincoln who Congress delegated the task of selecting a gauge and locating the starting point of the Union Pacific. By 1862 the NYC and its affiliated CNW were both standard gauge and both wanted a single gauge route with the UP. IIRC they and others encouraged Lincoln to select "standard" gauge. This was a reasonable choice since much of the Union rail network was standard gauge already. PRR and the Ohio gauge roads converted to standard shortly after the war. Southern roads that were 5' generally converted in the 1880's.

The narrow, 36", gauge was entirely separate. In the 1870's promoters decided that it would be much cheaper to build narrow gauge lines since narrow gauge meant narrow roadbeds which meant less cut and fill given a particular alignment in rolling or mountain country. At a time when a ten ton tare box car could carry a 10 ton load regardless of the gauge, the theory was credible. What the Hilton book explains is that experience showed that in practice, construction costs were cheaper largely due to lesser standards of engineering, mostly sharper curves, which of course limited speed. The gauge itself did not make much difference. The other thing the promoters missed, which they should not have, was the cost of transloading shipments at the interchange/gauge break point. Many short lines built narrow were standard gauged shortly after they were built for these reasons. All this is forgotten now since all we see are the DRGW narrow gauge remnants and the White Pass & Yukon.

Mac

[tree68]

Erie started with six foot guage.  I'm sure there are plenty of references with the original rationale.

In the early days of railroads, everyone had their own idea of how it should be done.  And, in some ways, they were inhibited by the contemporary technologies, or lack thereof.

And when it's all over, people still can't agree on why 4' 8.5"  (1435 mm) ended up being the standard.

[mudchicken]

Suggest you read the late Prof. George Hilton's book on the American Narrow Gauge. (For all the promoters claiming cheaper construction,Hilton debunked each part of those claims thoroughly)

[cacole]

Narrow gauge allows tighter curves, smaller rolling stock, and reduced construction costs.

Broad gauge, as in the USSR railroads, was to prevent the Germans from easily utilizing their rail system for a military invasion.  I think the Russian rail guage is still 5 foot.

 

[zkr123]

What is the point of creating a wider or narrower gauge railroad? It seems like a lot of extra and specialized parts.