Rail Gauge- would it be worth standardising?

Layzehfoo

Ok, it'll never happen, but here's a question. Purely as a hypothetical exercise, forgetting the organisation, what would it take to change the gauge to Europe-Britain-North American Gauge? How much would it cost? How long would it take?

Cookie_Monster

Layzehfoo wrote: »

what would it take to change the gauge to Europe-Britain-North American Gauge?
How much would it cost?
How long would it take?

1 Monumental effort and co-ordination
2 Billions and billions and if such a stunt were to go ahead they may as well dual track everywhere and that additional land to be CPO'd also. Stock conversion and/or replacement. Platform remodelling may be required also if carraige width or rail profiling change as a result.
3 25+ years

Judgement Day

Could have been done, should have been done years ago. Now that it has been decided to abandon rail transport outside the Greater Dublin Area it would be rather pointless and the savings minimal.

Run_to_da_hills

Judgement Day wrote: »

Could have been done, should have been done years ago. Now that it has been decided to abandon rail transport outside the Greater Dublin Area it would be rather pointless and the savings minimal.

If it had have been done years ago they would have shifted the mark 3's and overweighted 201 locos without any problem.

They would also have had more options on the purchase of common rolling stock.

corktina

this error back in the dawn of railways should have been corrected a long time ago, but you have to weigh up the extra cost of building new stock to 5'3" and modifying existing stock against the modest savings made though being able to buy "off the shelf"

Converting the track is not as straight forward as it sounds in these days of concrete sleepers. When the GWR in England (and Wales) converted in the late 1800s thay had timber sleepers and it was a case of moving one rail in and resecuring (a bit more complicated than that really in relation to junctions etc).

A massive task with small benefits.It will never happen unless they build that bridge to Holyhead...:D. All new building should be to the Standard Guage though if possible (ie LUAS)

corktina

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

If it had have been done years ago they would have shifted the mark 3's without any problem, they would also have had more options on the purchase of common rolling stock.

Putting standard guage bogies on the Mk3s isnt a problem. They probably weould have been sold without them anyway as it is cheaper to fit new(er) ones overseas than to ship them.

Layzehfoo

Well, I was considering the possibility of a future (30 years+) tunnel between Northern Ireland & Scotland, dependent on Scotland becoming a larger economy. Then railfreight might become a more feasible proposition.

dowlingm

If you've got the money for a tunnel regauging track is pocket change. There's loads of regauging going on in Oz at the moment if Railway Gazette is right.

Talgo bogies for the break of gauge as it moves along, with 1435mm stock taking over as complete sections are done. The problem is that when you hit the GDA that's going to be disruptive no matter how you slice it.

Empire o de Sun

Australia is (slowly) converting all it's routes to standard gauge, even though it was only "standard" in one state.

Cool Mo D

There's also the option of dual - gauge.

But really, what would be the point?

dowlingm

The cost of converting 1600mm heritage equipment would probably cause an outcry in some places...

corktina

i dunno, a N class mogul and a Jinty would fit right in....:cool:

Judgement Day

corktina wrote: »

i dunno, a N class mogul and a Jinty would fit right in....:cool:

Please let's have a spotters forum for all this tosh.

SeanW

As I understand it, the cost would be immense vis-a-vis the benefits.

Given that what we have is largely a network, thankfully, rather than a smorgasbord of unconnected railways, even converting one line would require converting many others or relaying a lot of transitionary dual-gauge. It would best be done when an entire railway needs to be relaid, either going straight to standard gauge or relaying broad gauge but using sleepers with 2 chairs on one side for easy re-gauging or dual-gauging later on, as has been done with many broad gauge railways in Australia. Another possibility would be an evential UK-Ireland tunnel, obviously a new high speed standard gauge railway would be needed to link our end of the tunnel to Dublin, even if the tunnel was Fishguard-Rosslare.

The only line I could think of being a candidate for re-gauging now would be Limerick-Ballybrophy - much of it is built on old track that will need to be replaced and it would take only a short stretch of dual gauge to get from Killonan Jct into Limerick station.

The DART and Maynooth/M3 commuter network out of Connolly could be dual-gauged might be another area to start as well.

patrickbrophy18

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

1 Monumental effort and co-ordination
2 Billions and billions and if such a stunt were to go ahead they may as well dual track everywhere and that additional land to be CPO'd also. Stock conversion and/or replacement. Platform remodelling may be required also if carraige width or rail profiling change as a result.
3 25+ years

Agreed. It would be an astronomical undertaking and is not needed. If it were to be carried out, the DART would need to be brought to a halt for a good few years. Plus, with the already tight budget for CIE, the likelihood of gauge standardisation is slim to none.

dowlingm

I'd rather have ERTMS island-wide rather than standard gauge.

mk6705

This would definitely not be worth it.
This may be a strange question...but wouldn't Irish Guage be safer? Harder to topple a wider base and all...

Judgement Day

Adro947 wrote: »

This would definitely not be worth it.
This may be a strange question...but wouldn't Irish Guage be safer? Harder to topple a wider base and all...

Why stop there let's convert to Brunel's Great Western Broad Gauge of 7 ft 0 1⁄4 inch for even greater stability at high speed.....I think the average speed on the Waterford-Limerick Junction and Nenagh branches is down to 28 mph, so think of the benefits Broad Gauge could bring. :rolleyes:

Check this out: http://www.didcotrailwaycentre.org.uk/guide/broadgauge.html

Dyr

Ze Germans would find it handy for their next attempt to take over the world

BrianD

Is there any point at this stage?

We don't have any problems in securing modern train sets from anywhere in the world.

even in the event of a rail link to Europe via a tunnel, this will involve high speed lines being built specifically for that use. This can be the same guage as the rest of Europe as local traffic won't be using it. It's unlikely that the high speed network would extend to the remainder of the country and Dublin could also be the the freight terminal. It's unlikely that any destination outside of Dublin would require a train load of freight so incoming trains would be "broken up for shipment to the provinces.