Why do we use Irish gauge?

Quinntan

What are the advantages and disadvantages of Irish gauge?

Manic Moran

Quinntan wrote: »

What are the advantages and disadvantages of Irish gauge?

As I recall it, the advantage was that nobody used it.

When standardisation was proposed pretty much every railroad had their own gaugue, including one running standard. The only way to make it fair on all railroads was to force them all to change, which meant that 4'8 1/2 couldn't be chosen.

This from very old and unreliable memory

Captain Chaos

Quinntan wrote: »

What are the advantages and disadvantages of Irish gauge?

Advantages are we can in theory load more into the same length. More stable at turning at higher speeds with lower centres of gravity in general if custom built for the guage. Wider coaching stock for better passenger comfort, wider seats and walkways. But to get that we need custom built rolling stock.

Disadvantages are we can't buy off the shelf rolling stock. Every thing must be custom built or re-bogied to our gauge. Adds to costs and then it makes it hard to try and sell stock on.

Wiki would cover it all in greater detail and the history.

Solair

Mostly because we're an island and never had to consider interoperability with other railways.

Captain Chaos

Solair wrote: »

Mostly because we're an island and never had to consider interoperability with other railways.

So was the UK until the Chunnel was built.

The original reason was due to the fact that the early railways used three different gauges. I may be wrong but they were roughly 4'8½" (standard gauge), 5'2" and 6'2", so 5'3" was decided upon as a compromise between the three.

Peregrinus

But the reason that we use it now is simply that it would be massively expensive to convert at this stage, and the advantages that would accrue from using standard guage are small enough that the costs of conversion would never be recovered.

From memory, Dublin tramways used the Irish guage, but when the Luas system was constructed the decision was taken to use standard gauge - no possibility of interoperation with IE lines, but presumably cheaper to buy off-the-shelf rolling stock designs.

demanufactured

What gauge do the yanks use?..
Saw some pretty wide looking tracks on YouTube...

Peregrinus

demanufactured wrote: »

What gauge do the yanks use?..

Standard guage, mostly.

Cookie_Monster

see here for who uses what (huge image) http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1f/Rail_gauge_world.png

wiki page on it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Track_gauge


Board na Mona also operate a huge 3ft gauge network in ireland

CIE

demanufactured wrote: »

What gauge do the yanks use?..
Saw some pretty wide looking tracks on YouTube...

4' 8½" gauge (1435 mm). Some railways used 6' broad gauge at one time (most notably the Erie and Lackawanna); they converted to standard overnight. Different gauges nowadays are used by trams and metros that are not part of the general railway network, e.g. Pennsylvania (5' 2¼" in Philadephia; 5' 2½" elsewhere) and San Francisco (BART's track gauge is 5' 6").

Peregrinus wrote: »

But the reason that we use it now is simply that it would be massively expensive to convert at this stage, and the advantages that would accrue from using standard guage are small enough that the costs of conversion would never be recovered

Only if you don't have realistic plans for the railway network, and they seem very confused in Leinster House. Australia converted a lot of their 5' 3"-gauge tracks to standard, IINM, especially under the "one nation" programme; a significant railway was the Melbourne–Adelaide main line, from broad to standard.

And if privatised freight were allowed to run in Ireland (yes, I know, very funny), then conversion costs of 1,192 railway miles would be recouped quite rapidly.

Solair

Captain Chaos wrote: »

So was the UK until the Chunnel was built.

Well, they did come up with Standard Gauge in the UK in the first place Other countries adopted it afterwards.

The main thing that the original railway companies would have been concerned about was interoperability within a national network. There wasn't any particular issue with custom-built coaches/locomotives as they were all hand-built anyway.

Ireland's gauge only mattered in Ireland.

It's more of an issue now as we can't take advantage of buying standard stock. Although, that being said, almost no stock's totally standard as every rail network has quirks - maximum width/height of vehicles, platform heights, voltages, frequencies, etc etc. However, a different gauge is pretty fundamental to the whole design of the train.

There wouldn't really be any logic in changing IE or NIR's networks to standard gauge at this stage. It would just cost an absolute fortune and achieve very little. It works fine and we have had no issue sourcing rolling stock for it.

Spain is progressively switching to standard gauge as it builds new lines, but that's more about interoperability with trans-EU high-speed routes.
They have dual-gauge trains that can operate across both their 1.668m system and standard gauge for routes where they use both e.g. trains to Bilbao and Pamplona still have to cope with both as they go over the AVE high speed network and then switch to 1.668m when they get further north.

corktina

Standard Gauge would be more accurately called "Stephenson Gauge" and comes from the waggonways used in the North East of England where he started off. Stephenson won the "War of the Gauges" in the UK against the far superior GWR 7'1/4" guage which disppaeared finally in 1892. Large swathes of the world operate on 3'6", metre, 5'0" and many other gauges.


(Just how old are you, Manic Moran???)

Solair

Is there actually any difference in the loading gauge (size of coaches) between Ireland and the UK though on modern trains?

I assume the MK3 coaches we had were just exactly the same as their UK counterparts with different bogies?

Solair

Solair wrote: »

Is there actually any difference in the loading gauge (size of coaches) between Ireland and the UK though on modern trains?

I assume the MK3 coaches we had were just exactly the same as their UK counterparts with different bogies?

I think the Park Royals were the last coaches which took advantage of the Irish loading gauge, they're much wider.

Solair

Karsini wrote: »

I think the Park Royals were the last coaches which took advantage of the Irish loading gauge, they're much wider.

What about the new CAF and Mitsui-Tokyu Car-Rotem coaches?

The DART fleet looks quite wide too.

gobnaitolunacy

demanufactured wrote: »

What gauge do the yanks use?..
Saw some pretty wide looking tracks on YouTube...

The Southern states used 5' for a while, regaguged after the Civil War.
I think Russia got the same gauge through a Southern engineer.

Australia was a mess of gauges (standard/5'3''/3'6'') due to different states doing their own thing.

Losty Dublin

Dublin Street trams actually used a guage that was marginally narrower than 5 foot 3. This was because it was hoped to move goods wagons along it will stopping street trams from traversing onto railway lines. In practice it never was adopted but the gauge remained in use. Luas used the Stephenson Gauge as it allows for better turning on ultra sharp curves and narrower clearance; it makes ordering the trams a little easier but regauging isn't as hard as people seem to think it is.

In relation to loading gauge, the high speed services need additional space between running lines to allow for turbulence and vibrations. Generally speaking railway companies will make use of this space and run slightly wider carriages than they would on normal services and normal lines.

Quinntan

If Ireland was standard gauge, how would that have affected the development of railways here?

gobnaitolunacy

Quinntan wrote: »

If Ireland was standard gauge, how would that have affected the development of railways here?

We could have bought a lot more second hand stuff or off the peg stock from Britain or perhaps the Continent.
Regauging from standard to 5'3'' was seldom done, the Woolwiches, 2 ex LMS Jinties that went to the NCC and some ex LNWR locos that went to the DWWR and the Tramore come to mind, some assorted coaching and goods stock from the LMS also got regauged and sent over back in the day. More recently the Genny Vans, International Set and Gatwicks, can't think of any more.

Losty Dublin

gobnaitolunacy wrote: »

We could have bought a lot more second hand stuff or off the peg stock from Britain or perhaps the Continent.
Regauging from standard to 5'3'' was seldom done, the Woolwiches, 2 ex LMS Jinties that went to the NCC and some ex LNWR locos that went to the DWWR and the Tramore come to mind, some assorted coaching and goods stock from the LMS also got regauged and sent over back in the day. More recently the Genny Vans, International Set and Gatwicks, can't think of any more.

The Pulman stock were regauged and stock on the Dundalk, Newry and Greenore line was imported from the UK as well. Railcar B of SLNCR fame is a identical model to the ones supplied by Walkers for the West Clare section bar it's running gauge.

Something worth noting here; the majority of bogies used here were identical to those used overseas. Bodies were almost always built here in the heyday of skilled coachbuilding and to avoid import tariffs so the carriage width could easily be customised to local needs. It was the Mark 2 fleet and it's tubular body structure that saw the beginning of the end of coach building, mainly because it was something that needed to be done off site.

Cookie_Monster

Quinntan wrote: »

If Ireland was standard gauge, how would that have affected the development of railways here?

Rail deck ferries to Wales and Scotland would have been possible and in the modern day would be a big freight advantage for the likes of say Tesco would could simply train the huge amount of freight they have from London / Felixstowe or Southampton direct to Ireland like they do to Scotland.

Del2005

corktina wrote: »

Standard Gauge would be more accurately called "Stephenson Gauge" and comes from the waggonways used in the North East of England where he started off. Stephenson won the "War of the Gauges" in the UK against the far superior GWR 7'1/4" guage which disppaeared finally in 1892. Large swathes of the world operate on 3'6", metre, 5'0" and many other gauges.

He didn't really win the war of the gauges. It was easier and cheaper to convert the wider gauge tracks to narrow, than convert the narrow to wide.

Cookie_Monster

Del2005 wrote: »

He didn't really win the war of the gauges. It was easier and cheaper to convert the wider gauge tracks to narrow, than convert the narrow to wide.

well he did, broad gauge was superior for comfort, safety and loading yet the cheaper cost is what won "standard" the standard.

Peregrinus

CIE wrote: »

. . . Australia converted a lot of their 5' 3"-gauge tracks to standard, IINM, especially under the "one nation" programme; a significant railway was the Melbourne–Adelaide main line, from broad to standard.

But Australia had to convert if they were to run through trains across the country - and even then it took them something like 60 years to complete the job. We don't have that problem - our rail network is, and will remain, completely self-contained, and we can already run through trains from anywhere on the system to anywhere else.

CIE wrote: »

And if privatised freight were allowed to run in Ireland (yes, I know, very funny), then conversion costs of 1,192 railway miles would be recouped quite rapidly.

Why? How much would the private freight carriers save by buying standard gauge instead of Irish gauge rolling stock?

CIE

Karsini wrote: »

I think the Park Royals were the last coaches which took advantage of the Irish loading gauge; they're much wider.

That's correct; the last 10' 2" wide cars. All the other cars barely reach the platform.

(In "hindsight 20/20" mode, it's a pity that Dublin suburban routes weren't electrified sooner; could have gotten some Budd stainless steel cars from Amerikay, maybe something resembling the R32s which have been running since 1964 and are still giong? albeit with fewer doors per side of course.)

Peregrinus wrote: »

But Australia had to convert if they were to run through trains across the country - and even then it took them something like 60 years to complete the job. We don't have that problem - our rail network is, and will remain, completely self-contained, and we can already run through trains from anywhere on the system to anywhere else.

No, Australia did not "have to convert" to enable cross-state through trains any more than Spain feels the need to convert even though their AVE lines are 1435 mm versus their general railway network at 1668 mm (5' 5⅔") broad gauge. Australia could have kept break-of-gauge stations and depots like in the past, if they wanted. Even Germany's Knorr-Bremse is developing a variable-gauge system for DB Cargo to ship freight to/from Russia. (Doesn't mean that Ireland ought to keep its gauge though, even in the case of a railway tunnel being built under the Irish Sea...)

Peregrinus wrote: »

How much would the private freight carriers save by buying standard gauge instead of Irish gauge rolling stock?

A great deal, especially in both costs of customisation and maintenance. Standardisation always saves.

There's also the possibility of run-through for Luas to/from the general railway network if Ireland re-gauges to 1435 mm. Greater flexibility is always desirable.

Peregrinus

CIE wrote: »

No, Australia did not "have to convert" to enable cross-state through trains any more than Spain feels the need to convert even though their AVE lines are 1435 mm versus their general railway network at 1668 mm (5' 5⅔") broad gauge. Australia could have kept break-of-gauge stations and depots like in the past, if they wanted.

Meh. The point is, Australia had to convert if they wanted to avoid the loss of time, expense and inconvenience associated with breaks of gauge on interstate journeys. They had to convert if they wanted a national rail network with a uniform gauge. We don’t have this problem.

CIE wrote: »

A great deal, especially in both costs of customisation and maintenance. Standardisation always saves.

There's also the possibility of run-through for Luas to/from the general railway network if Ireland re-gauges to 1435 mm. Greater flexibility is always desirable.

Sure, standardization saves, and so does flexibility. But I await the calculations which show that standardization and flexibility will save enough to make gauge conversion financially and economically viable. I am skeptical that this is the case.

In this regard, the experience of Australia is relevant. Australia did eventually (by 1995) construct continuous standard-gauge tracks linking all the state capitals - but they only converted the trunk lines. There’s still plenty of narrow-gauge and Irish-guage lines about. In fact, the non-standard gauge lines are well over half of the national rail network.

In other words, they only found it economic to avoid break-of-gauge on the major national trunk lines. To achieve this they accepted, and indeed magnified, the problems associated with non-uniformity , inflexibility, etc within the state rail system.

It’s very far from a given, then, that conversion to standard gauge will pay for itself in terms of the benefits of standardization and flexibility.

Solair

I've taken trains in Spain that change gauge and to be honest it's no big deal. The train moves slowly for about 1 min across a gauge-change system that pushes the wheels and locks them into place.

Whole thing took significantly less time than stopping at Limerick Junction!

It's hardly a massive inconvenience to the operators once it's done like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiH4kt14yGw

This is a Spanish Department of Development (Ministerio de Fomento) and Administrador de Infraestructuras Ferroviarias (Rail network administration) video explaining the Talgo/CAF technology for doing this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjIuem6L6b8

It's in Spanish, but you'd get the gist!

This system has meant that they don't need to replace thousand of kms of lines, they just use gauge-changing trains on long-distance routes that use both systems.

Peregrinus

Part of the expense, I suspect, lies in equipping your fleet - locomotives and cars alike - with bogies which can change gauge.

But none of this is relevant to Ireland. Currently, we have a uniform gauge throughout the the IE system - no need for gauge change. CIE (the boardie, not the transport company!) proposes that we regauge the entire system - there would still be no need for gauge change, but we'd have the expense of rebuilding the entire network, plus re-equipping the entire fleed with new bogies, plus obviously considerable inconvenience while all this was done. CIE thinks this would be economically justified by the savings resulting from (a) cheaper purchase of rolling stock in the future because bogies would no longer need to be adapted to the Irish gauge, plus (b) interoperation between Luas and IE systems.

I'm sceptical. Very sceptical.

Temp101

CIE wrote: »

That's correct; the last 10' 2" wide cars. All the other cars barely reach the platform.

Weren't the next series of CIE built coaches also 10' 2" wide, over their whole length?

Solair

Peregrinus wrote: »

Part of the expense, I suspect, lies in equipping your fleet - locomotives and cars alike - with bogies which can change gauge.

But none of this is relevant to Ireland. Currently, we have a uniform gauge throughout the the IE system - no need for gauge change. CIE (the boardie, not the transport company!) proposes that we regauge the entire system - there would still be no need for gauge change, but we'd have the expense of rebuilding the entire network, plus re-equipping the entire fleed with new bogies, plus obviously considerable inconvenience while all this was done. CIE thinks this would be economically justified by the savings resulting from (a) cheaper purchase of rolling stock in the future because bogies would no longer need to be adapted to the Irish gauge, plus (b) interoperation between Luas and IE systems.

I'm sceptical. Very sceptical.

Well in Spain it was a case that they just built (in Spain, creating loads of jobs and using technical expertise) an entirely new fleet as it needed replacing anyway.

Suits them fine.

In Ireland, there's absolutely no reason to switch to standard gauge. It would make no sense at all.

We don't have international freight, we don't have any reason to build standard-gauge lines for any international reasons. It would be crazy to rip up the existing lines and create fleet incompatibilities for no logical reason.

We're an island with one standard rail gauge. It's highly unlikely we'll ever need to run British or continental trains across our network.

Spain built the AVE lines to standard gauge as it meant that they could integrate with the French TGV network and beyond into the other European high speed networks.

It's a huge deal as it means they can ultimately bring tourists in by AVE/TGV/ICE etc from northern Europe as well as providing all the business links.

Spain's quite a different market in so far as it needs to get 56.7 million tourists to various parts of the country vs 6.6 million tourists in Ireland. Spain's the 4th most visited country in the world (in raw numbers) and hugely dependent on tourism in many regions (especially in the south)

That's partially why it has lashed money into rail and also why it has airports in some odd areas. However, they're not quite as mad as people think as it's not like Ireland or parts of the UK. There are VAST numbers of people to move in / out point-to-point.

They're banking on the fact that for environmental / fuel cost advantages of rail in the future. So, if/when air gets pricy as fuel runs out, Spain is left with a MASSIVE advantage over other Mediterranean countries as it's vastly more accessible from Northern Europe by high speed rail.

It also opened up high-speed freight from Spain to other parts of Europe. It has a lot of heavy industry and manufacturing industry (cars, appliances etc). So, for them it makes sense.

For us it would be even less logical as changing the side of the road we drive on and I can't see that happening ever either.

aindriu80

To be honest as an island I can't see there being too many problems with Irish gauge since it is broad and all island. If it was narrow the case to increase it might be worth talking about?

Of course if there are things like light rail now and again - go standard gauge. The only thing the country could possibly use standard gauge would be a tunnel and high speed rail to the U.K. I'm not sure how things would work there ?

One thing they should do is open existing lines to private haulage on the rail lines though !

CIE

We don't have international freight

Yes we do, but the government has deemed it be all hauled by "supertruck". All to far greater expense in both the short and long run to both taxpayer and consumer.

dowlingm

If it was to work at all I'd say a rail train from Larne to Stranraer would be the way to go... but they've moved the port down the bay from the rail line at the Scottish end and I don't think the Larne rails reach into the Port either do they? Would also require NIR to give a damn about freight which currently they don't seem to.

As for the Talgo bogies - wouldn't have to retrofit the whole fleet, just the part dedicated to the crosschannel run. Thing is, to make it work financially you'd have to clear the alignments for 9'6" on standard wagons I would think, since the pockets are a substantial reducer of TEU for a given length of train - some lengthening of passing track too I fancy, plus strengthening for high axle weights if 071s were deemed insufficient to the task.