August 1984 Trains, 14 pages.

What you gain with capacity increases, you lose with massive infrastructure and real estate costs. I could only see this done in a socialistic dictatorship where "the state" owns all and nobody is there to complain about the land eaten up for the project, or the price. Maybe if, say, a junta-led Nicaragua wanted to build a rail alternative to the Panama Canal across Central America?

Have you seen the verbal debate over Obama's current proposals for High Speed Rail in the USA (with repeated referrals to the "Monorail" episode of "The Simpsons")? Can you imagine if someone advanced a "Supertrain" concept as the way to go for the next generation of HSR for the U.S. to build? Between references to this "Nazi proposal" and the NBC show "Supertrain," no matter how sound the rationale and numbers it would be ridiculed into oblivion.

The investment required, if applied instead to improvements in regular gauge railroads, would, I believe, give far greater bang for the buck.

The TRAINS issue was August 1984.

Steve

I'm not so sure that such broad gauge would make practical sense from the perspective that gross tonnage would have a difficult time being maximized to the level that standard gauge railroads in North America have progressed. Certainly Southern gauge (5') or Erie style broad gauge (6') would be of tremendous benefits to today's carriers, but at 3 meters, I'm not sure the expense of maintaining a track structure robust enough could be justified in any way. Also, the tare weight of the mechanical components strong enough would not be insignificant from an engineering perspective.

Just my 2 cents.

The basic arguments for broad gauge railroads in the early - mid 19th century (notably 6 ft. in America and aprox. 7 ft in England) were A) Better stability at speed and B) Economies of scale in boilers (basically, a boiler's thermal efficiency improves with size....up to a certain optimal point). Offsetting these advantages were economic considerations. First of course was the tremendous first cost of right-of-way construction for something that size. Second was the question of indivisabality of goods and passengers - that is to say that any object to be transported has a point beyond which it cannot be subdivided, and all transportation devices must be designed to fit this indivisable unit. Third was of course the problem of incompatibility with other existing railroads, and the impossibility of interchanging equipment.

Experience has shown that 4 ft, 8-1/2 inches is very close to an optimal gauge and size for railroads. Fred Lavis, an American civil engineer did an extensive economic study of narrow, standard, and broad gauge railroads in Australia & Argentina in 1915. His results showed a U-shaped relation for costs per train mile with a clear economic advantage to standard gauge:

Australia
Broad $1.20
Standard 1.09
Narrow 1.32

Argentina
Broad $1.62
Standard 1.22
Narrow 1.41

All of this data and more was available to Hitler and his German engineers. A system such as they proposed would have been unaffordable to begin with and uneconomic if built. In retrospect it appears to be nothing more than one of the Fuhrer's ego-driven flights of fancy.
J

Those numbers are interesting.

In Australia, broad gauge cost about ten per cent more than standard; in Argentina, about 30 per cent more. If the capacity of a typical broad gauge freight car was proportionately larger than a standard gauge car, might broad gauge have been cheaper to operate? A given amount of freight could have been moved in fewer units (cars).

In contrast, using his numbers it's obvious that narrow gauge was a loser, with both smaller cars and higher costs.

Walt Lankenau

I suppose this means the rocket boosters for the Space Shuttle would have been larger too ;-)

Stephen

Hitler’s broad gage proposal is fascinating, but I think it is a product of Hitler’s megalomania, rather than being a rational product of an analysis of the economics railroad gage.

I remember once asking a railroad historian friend about any studies on the optimal gauge for a railroad (probably in relation to the publication of George Hilton's American Narrow Gauge Railroads nearly 30 years ago). He said that a study had been done at one time that determined that 5'2" (62 inches) would have been the optimal gauge for a railroad. Comes very close to that of some countries - Russia, Australia, Brazil, Ireland - that I can think of off the top of my head. Does anyone here know if those countries believe their railroads are better off than those built to standard gauge? Really not a tremendous difference between 56.5" and 62", but probably enough to make a difference in stability at higher speeds.

There was some thought that if the Erie-Lackawanna had managed to survive into the double-stack era, they would have been in a really great position to take advantage of the technology. The former Erie parts of the railroad were built to an original loading gauge of 6', and they had some of the most generous clearances in the East. It would also have made them an obvious route for intermodal bridge traffic, since, as the critics noted, they managed to go from New York to Chicago and miss every major city along the way, except for branches.

Having ridden some modern meter gauge railroads in Switzerland a couple of years ago, it seemed like the narrowness of the gauge had not prevented them from making the passenger equipment almost as wide as standard gauge coaches. I'm sure this affects absolute top speeds they can achieve, but it didn't seem to affect the desirability or comfort of the service.

Take a look at the picture with the hull. Part of the design to to be able to transport the hulls of small destroyers and complete U-boats, minus the tower, from a central production line to the north see, the Atlantic coast of France, and the Mediterranean sea with out having to sail them in between.

And yes, Hitler was a megalomaniac who's eyes were bigger than reality.

Mathematically, note that the cubic capacity of a train will vary roughly as the cube of the change in gauge. So, for example, a change from standard to 5 foot gauge is about a 7% increase in gauge, but a 23% increase in capacity. A six foot gauge allows an enormous 212% capacity increase.

Point: any capacity deficiency can be resolved with a very small gauge change. The mega Hitler railroad is pointless.

But, modern railroads have already found easy ways to increase capacity by simply reducing the center of gravity and tare weight of freight cars. There are still a lot of relatively easy options to increase capacity without re-gauging the entire network.

Quoting Stephen Hussar;

"I suppose this means the rocket boosters for the Space Shuttle would have been larger too ;-)"

Funny bit of history about the Space Shuttle booster engines, the original plan was to build them in a new factory on the Gulf Coast (Louisiana, if I remember correctly) and then barge them to the Kennedy Space Center. They would have been one piece with NO JOINTS.

But a congressman from Utah lobbied to have them built there in an existing factory. Thus the need to ship them by rail and the need for troublesome joints. Never let politicans make engineering decisions.

And the rest is history.

Cheers, Kevin.

In relation to the question of broad versus standard gauge in Australia I can make a few points. It was asked whether extra capacity of cars could justify the extra expense. Possibly were it to be the case but in fact the locomotives and cars are the same and they merely exchange the wheel sets to suit whichever line they need to run on. As to stability, my father worked for the Victorian Railways which is broad gauge and he always thought that it was more stable than standard gauge but I think that was only parochialism coming out. Much of the old VR has now been either standard gauged or at least dual gauged.

Regards

Wes

There has been hearsay that Japan's 42 inch lines use an American style standard gauge loading gauge. I wonder how stable this story is on a bridge during high winds.

Here in California we have the BART system, which runs on 5'6" gauge track. This non-standard gauge was supposedly chosen for stability at high speeds. Not sure if any gain in stability was worth the extra expense of buying oddball track hardware (interchange was not a factor in this passengers-only operation), but we should note that Japan's Shinkansen "Bullet Trains" and France's TGV's all run on the old English/North American standard track (It's just very well maintained.) In Los Angeles, the local LA Railway lines ran on 42" gauge. The last group of cars, the P-3 class PCC's bought by successor company LA Transit Lines, had bodies similar to those found running on standard and even broad-gauge trucks in other cities. This discussion brings to mind the fact that US loading gauge at about ten feet is over twice the track gauge. This was impressed upon me many years ago when I'd ride the local switcher around the yard, thanks to a friendly ex Pacific Electric engineer. That track looked mighty narrow when viewed almost straight down from cab level. Similar experience when running a PE interurban car at OERM, where the motorman's position is out beyond the rail.

Here's an urban legend that speaks to the level of engineering expertise that designed that property... Miles and miles of track with the bonds welded to the gage face of the rail, because the inspectors didn't know what they were looking at.

Anyone care to de-bunk the myth?