Railway track 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. ”

“ Material of any kind can be as effectively delivered on ship-board by narrow gauge railway wagons as by horses and carts, if not better. In reckoning up the cost of transhipment from small wagons on to a railway system—no great matter with proper appliances—it must not be lost sight of that, even if a branch of standard gauge were constructed to many establishments, the large wagons cannot, as a rule, be got up to the point where the material lies, and a preliminary transference in barrows or carts is necessary. ”

“ No one but an enthusiast would dare to contend that a two-foot gauge was the ideal width for a line employing twenty-ton locomotives and hauling about 100,000 passengers and some 150,000 tons of minerals and goods per annum. If this development could have been foreseen, the selected gauge would doubtless have been wider. Such a traffic, however, is quite outside the scope of this pamphlet, the logic of which is directed to shewing how a much smaller annual tonnage than has been hitherto deemed worthy of a railway may be profitably thus conveyed. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ The girder rails were either bedded directly on the foundation or spiked to timber sleepers which were buried in the concrete.
The form of head adopted for tramway rails in Europe has almost universally been one with the groove on one side. With this section the wheel flange forces out the dirt clear of the tread. In a few isolated cases a centre grooved rail has been used. As with railways, the adoption of many different gauges has led to much inconvenience. This want of uniformity in the gauge is in some parts of the country a great obstacle to the construction of inter-urban lines. ”

“ Some persons have odd notions of the speed of railway trains. Some few years ago, a jockey who had missed the express to Newmarket, was anxious to have a special train, but on being informed of the cost, he earnestly asked an officer of the Company “if he did not think the express might be overtaken if he followed it in a cab!” The express train was running on the Eastern Counties.
[47] The “narrow” gauge, the gauge all but universal through England, Scotland, Wales, and Europe generally, is 4 feet 81⁄2 inches; the “broad,” or Great Western gauge, is 7 feet. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 nevertheless evident that it is impossible to construct cheap railways on the normal gauge system, as the maintenance of such would-be light railways is in proportion far more costly than that of standard railways. ”

“ This attitude is probably due to ignorance of what can be done on the narrowest gauges, for, in spite of the fact that many hundreds of miles of lines of less than 2 ft. gauge are at work abroad, our professional advisers persist in regarding such railways as mere toys. Yet a line of 15 in. gauge has been at work in this country for twenty years, on which thousands of passengers have been carried without a single accident, as many as 120 in one train, over gradients as steep as 1 in 20, the goods traffic being worked in all weathers up a long gradient of 1 in 11 without difficulty. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The speed of the train on the straight portions of the line is six miles an hour, but it is considerably less on the curves at either end, which are twenty-six feet in diameter. The contractors experienced a great deal of difficulty in getting the curves exactly right, as the six-inch gauge of the railway, no other line being of any assistance in this particular, introduced an entirely new problem in railroad construction. The engine can travel six times round the entire length of the system without its being necessary to renew the charcoal fire. ”

“ By this invention, simple in itself, the foundation was obtained for the development of practically every one of the intricate systems of railway block signaling in use today wherein the train is, under all conditions, continuously active in maintaining its own protection.
"In other words the track circuit is today the only medium recognized as fundamentally safe by experts in railway signaling whereby a train or any part thereof may retain continuous and direct control of a block signal while occupying any portion of the track guarded by the signal." ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The comparative narrow flange places the spikes at great disadvantage in point of leverage for holding down, and this weakness is soon made manifest, particularly on curves, where additional crab bolts or other devices are rendered necessary to counteract the tendency of the rail to rock and tilt over sideways. When the head of the rail cannot be kept in its proper position, the gauge becomes widened, and an irregular sinuous motion takes place in the running of the train. ”

“ It is not infrequent to find the rail resistance to be as high as 0.20 ohms per 1,000 ft. of track, and we have known it to run as high as 0.264 in new rail, where especial attention had been given to obtaining as good bonding as possible. Under such conditions the angle bar carries very little of the current, the capacity of the bond is not sufficient to carry the current, and the net result is a failing track circuit, which is probably attributed to bad ballast, zinc treated ties or other causes. ”