Railway gauge

“ High speeds are not expected on narrow gauge railways, and no complaints are made about passenger trains whose highest running speed does not exceed 20 miles per hour. By conceding the same indulgence to light railways made to the standard gauge, great economies might be introduced both in their construction and working. The similarity of gauge would admit the transit of the carriages and waggons of other standard gauge lines, and so avoid all cost and delay in transshipment. ”

“ If there be almost a certainty that such proposed line will always remain isolated from all other existing railways of the standard gauge, then perhaps the selection of gauge may be one of minor importance, and there remains but the question whether the description of traffic, and the weights to be carried, can be worked to any greater advantage, or more economically, by deviating from the standard gauge. ”

“ For main trunk lines, however, where a large, heavy, and fast passenger traffic will have to be worked, and where goods of all kinds, many of them bulky without being heavy, will have to be carried, an ample gauge must be selected to ensure convenience and safety. A liberal gauge permits the use of commodious rolling-stock without any great amount of lateral overhanging weight outside the wheels; whereas with a narrow gauge there is the tendency—if not the necessity—to use vehicles which [Pg 38] have too great a lateral overhang for proper stability, except at very moderate speeds. ”

“ There is a capital run of railway between York and Darlington, forty-four miles, almost level, and nearly straight. It was on this line that, just twenty years ago, most of the experiments and trials were made, instituted to vindicate the narrow gauge as the best for carrying on the traffic of the country. These trials formed one of the many phases of the great battle of the gauges, fought so vigorously by its champions on each side; yet, in the short space of the fifth of a century, how many of these then active and doughty men have passed away from us for ever. ”

“ So we find that the 3 ft. 6 in. gauge has been adopted in Queensland, South Australia (with a further 600 miles of 5 ft. 3 in. gauge) , Western Australia, and the Northern Territory; the 4 ft. 81⁄2 in. gauge (the standard gauge in Great Britain and, also, of over 65 per cent. of the world's railway mileage,) in New South Wales; and the 5 ft. 3 in. gauge in Victoria. This means, in most cases, that when the frontier of a State is reached, passengers, [373] mails, baggage and merchandise must change or be transferred from the trains on the one system to those of the other. ”

“ A 6-foot gauge was introduced on the Erie Railway and retained long after the standard gauge had become general in the United States. As time passes, however, the 4 foot 81⁄2 inch gauge is becoming more common all over the world. The method of fastening rails to the ties varies. In America hook-headed spikes are almost universally used; the bull-headed rail used in England is wedged into cast-iron chairs which are bolted to the ties; in Europe considerable use is made of bolts; and when steel ties are employed various forms of clamping devices tightened by means of bolts or wedges are used. ”

“ From the fact that nearly 2,000 miles of Railway are already made or sanctioned on the narrow gauge, while not more than 300 are sanctioned on the wide gauge, a disproportion which will be still more largely increased by the new Railways now in contemplation, an inference might be drawn in favour of confining the gauge which is in such a decided minority within the narrowest possible limits ”

“ He considered that an exceptional gauge should be confined to a district of country where break of gauge is unimportant by reason of non-interchange of traffic, and even then he preferred to adopt a light railway on the standard gauge, except under very peculiar circumstances, which must be very rare indeed, when the narrow gauge would have some special advantages. ”

“ I designed some cast-steel coupler-buffers of this type lately for the Royal Engineers’ 30 in. gauge experimental field railway, near Chatham, which, though for reasons unconnected with their construction not adopted, are reported as the only ones of several types experimented with ‘which fulfilled the necessary requirements. In the bogie stock the coupler-buffers are fitted to the bogie, and not to the car frame, on account of the severe curves. In the construction of the wagons and cars almost every part is made to gauge, and put together without fitting. ”

“ The permanent way should be made a thoroughly sound job, as it will then cost but little for repairs. Particulars of what is recommended will be found in Sections III. and IV. I am no advocate of portable railways, which may be well enough for hand trains, or even for horse traction, but a locomotive requires a solid and clean road if it is to work to advantage.
It is often possible to carry a narrow gauge railway by the roadside or, as at Eaton, over pasture lands without the necessity of fencing the line in. ”

“ Hawthorne & Co., of Newcastle.
The locomotive of to-day is not the invention of any one man. Hundreds of able engineers and draughtsmen have improved it step by step since 1825, and many controversies have turned around every section of its structure. Failures contributed as vitally as successes in those early days to show the way. The opening of the Great Western Railway (broad gauge) in 1837 opened "The battle of the gauges," which continued for fifteen years afterwards, and the rivalry itself assisted the development of the engine. ”

“ It is very doubtful how far the addition of a single rail only would be consistent with safety, as in this case the centre of gravity of the carriages of different gauge in the same train would not be in the same straight line. If a complete double set of rails were laid down the expense would be very considerable. ”

“ For several years it held a unique position among the great systems of the world as the narrowest gauge line in operation. The metals are laid only 231⁄4 inches apart—less than half the distance between the rails forming the roads of the greater proportion of steel highways bounding the globe—and yet it has a traffic which many a more important railway would have just cause to envy. ”

“ On the Festiniog Railway of 231⁄2 in. gauge, a sleeper 4 ft. 6 in. long has been adopted with excellent results.
A detail of importance in laying rails is that the joints should be opposite one another. For this purpose it is necessary to order a proportion of the rails 3 in. to 6 in. shorter than the rest, according to the gauge and radius of curves. In this way the joints can be kept practically square. A cross-jointed road is not only unpleasant p. 13to travel on, but is also exceedingly difficult to set up true, particularly on sharp curves. ”

“ Where the impediments in the way of a light railway branch are insuperable, or where the proposed line has no connexion with the railway system, the advantages of a narrow-gauge railway may properly be weighed—such as the smaller width occupied, the sharper curves admissible, the lighter, cheaper, and more easily-handled permanent way and rolling-stock, the absence of much of the unsightliness of a line of standard gauge, the ease with which, in the ease of gauges under 2 ft., the rails can be laid among and into existing buildings, and, lastly, the convenience of being p. ”

“ I go so far as to think that, without getting rid of a depending fire-box, no really satisfactory tank engine can be constructed for a small gauge railway unless idle wheels are introduced, a proceeding that cannot too strongly be deprecated. ”

“ This type of low locomotive is the one that has come into general use throughout the world. Such locomotives range in size from two to twenty tons, with wheel gauges from a foot and a half wide to the standard railway gauge of four feet, eight and a half inches. Locomotives weighing more than twenty tons are not in general use on account of the small size of the mine entrances. ”

“ Another most important error has been committed by a too narrow gauge having been adopted. My brother and myself, when we carried the Bill for the Manchester and Liverpool through Parliament, in the year 1826—and this may be considered almost the very commencement of the railway system—after investigating the width between all the various carriage wheels, whether for goods or passengers, we decided that the width of gauge from centre to centre of the rails should be 5 feet 6 inches or 6 feet. ”

“ A rail should be made not only strong enough to carry well the engines that have to pass over it, but it should also be heavy enough to stand the wear of several years. Narrow-gauge engines must be heavy in conformity with the loads they have to haul. The same amount of power must be exerted to haul a hundred tons on a given gradient, whether the gauge be narrow or broad. In some cases of narrow-gauge railways the original rails, which weighed only 45 lbs. ”

“ It is probable that a traffic of 5,000 tons annually over a mile of line is the smallest amount that would repay the construction of a narrow gauge railway, for the estimate has been based upon the narrowest line which can profitably be employed. ”

“ Gauge.—The gauge of a railway, or its width from inside to inside of rails, affects both its cost and efficiency. If the gauge be exceptionally wide, then the expenditure on works and rolling-stock will be proportionately heavy; and although theoretically the extra wide gauge may possess greater capabilities for accommodation and high-speed travelling, we may find in practice that the necessary requirements may be provided on a much more moderate gauge. ”

“ This weight of train is by no means the limit which can be hauled on the line, for, on the Duffield Bank railway, the eight-wheel-coupled engine draws far more than this load, and on one occasion took eight bogie passenger cars carrying 124 persons up a gradient of 1 in 47 on which is a half-circle curve of only 40 ft. ”

“ In their report the Commissioners adopted the opinion of the Gauge Commissioners ‘that a break of gauge was a most serious impediment in the transport of merchandise, and that the broad gauge did not offer any compensating advantage so far as that description of traffic was concerned.’ In regard, however, to passenger traffic, they found a case for further enquiry. They said—
It is notorious that higher speeds, with larger and heavier passenger trains, are regularly maintained on a part of the line of the Great Western Railway than on any other railway in the country. ”

“ On 5 July 1845 Smith and Professors Airy and Barlow were constituted a commission to inquire whether future parliamentary railway bills should provide for a uniform gauge, and whether it would be expedient or practicable to bring railways already constructed or in course of construction into uniformity of gauge, or whether any other mode of obviating or mitigating the serious impediments to the internal traffic of the country could be adopted. ”

“ It would be well that our railway engineers should inform themselves more fully on the subject, as otherwise their valuable assistance, which would insure that narrow-gauge railways were constructed in a solid and reliable manner, will be thrust on one side by the requirements of the times, and the work will be wholly in the hands of the many manufacturers of narrow-gauge plant, whose designs, being chiefly of what is known as the portable class, are, for the most part, ill adapted for permanent locomotive traffic. ”

“ Now any railway car can be run all over the United States, with the exceptions of a few special lines where the gauge is three feet, six inches.
“Three feet, six inches is the gauge of the railways of Queensland. That of New South Wales is four feet, eight and one half inches, while that of Victoria is five feet, three inches. In South Australia some of the lines are of five feet, three inches gauge, and others have the same gauge as the Queensland railways. The narrow gauge is especially adapted to mountain regions, and also to thinly populated districts. ”

“ By its adoption the use of existing rolling-stock is secured, transhipment is avoided, and the line can be subsequently and without difficulty transformed, if necessary, into a railway of standard construction—advantages for which much may be sacrificed. But as it would be almost invariably essential to build a light railway of sufficient strength to carry the 15 tons gross weight of a standard coal wagon, the permanent way would be of a somewhat costly character, and, in the case of severe gradients, considerable difficulty would arise in providing suitable locomotive power. ”

“ By introducing the mixed gauge on the Birmingham and Oxford Junction Railway, the line from Birmingham by Fenny Compton to London would probably offer, as a broad-gauge railway, as rapid a communication as the existing direct line; [59] and great as the advantages which the public have received by the rivalry between the gauges, in the rapid improvement in railway travelling, have been, it might even be expected that these would be further increased when the two systems are brought into direct competition, which as yet they have not been (p. 16) . ”

“ Now it is clear that, unless there is a prospect of large increase in the traffic, it would be absurd to employ for a maximum of 10,000 tons a railway equal to 60,000 tons, and so the question arises:—What is the smallest and therefore the cheapest railway capable of being practically and advantageously worked? ”