Broad-gauge railway

Track gauge

By transport mode
Tram Rapid transit Miniature Scale model
By size (list)
Minimum   Minimum   Fifteen inch 381 mm (15 in) Narrow   600 mm Two foot Two foot three inch 600 mm 610 mm 686 mm (1 ft 11+5⁄8 in) (2 ft) (2 ft 3 in)   750 mm Bosnian gauge Two foot six inch 750 mm 760 mm 762 mm (2 ft 5+1⁄2 in) (2 ft 5+15⁄16 in) (2 ft 6 in)   Swedish three foot 900 mm Three foot Italian metre 891 mm 900 mm 914 mm 950 mm (2 ft 11+3⁄32 in) (2 ft 11+7⁄16 in) (3 ft) (3 ft1+13⁄32 in)   Metre 1,000 mm (3 ft 3+3⁄8 in)   Three foot six inch 1,067 mm (3 ft 6 in)   Four foot 1,219 mm (4 ft)   Four foot six inch 1,372 mm (4 ft 6 in)   1432 mm 1,432 mm (4 ft 8+3⁄8 in)   Standard 1,435 mm (4 ft 8+1⁄2 in) Broad   Italian broad gauge Dresden gauge 1,445 mm 1,450 mm (4 ft 8+7⁄8 in) (4 ft 9+3⁄32 in)   Leipzig gauge 1,458 mm (4 ft 9+13⁄32 in)   Toronto gauge 1,495 mm (4 ft 10+7⁄8 in)   1520 mm Five foot 1,520 mm 1,524 mm (4 ft 11+27⁄32 in) (5 ft)   Pennsylvania gauge Pennsylvania gauge Five foot three inch 1,581 mm 1,588 mm 1,600 mm (5 ft 2+1⁄4 in) (5 ft 2+1⁄2 in) (5 ft 3 in)   Baltimore gauge 1,638 mm (5 ft 4+1⁄2 in)   Iberian gauge Five foot six inch 1,668 mm 1,676 mm (5 ft 5+21⁄32 in) (5 ft 6 in)   Six foot 1,829 mm (6 ft)   Brunel 2,140 mm (7 ft 1⁄4 in)
Change of gauge
Break-of-gauge Dual gauge Conversion list Bogie exchange Variable gauge
By location
North America South America Europe Australia

A broad-gauge railway is a

Broad gauge of 1,676 mm (5 ft 6 in), commonly known as Indian gauge, is the dominant track gauge in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Argentina, Chile, and on BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) in the San Francisco Bay Area. This is the widest gauge in common use anywhere in the world. It is possible for trains on both Iberian gauge and Indian gauge to travel on each other's tracks with no modifications in the vast majority of cases.^{[citation needed]}

History

Many early New York railways were Erie railroad-built branch lines, while others were independent railroads that wanted to partner and interchange with the Erie. These included the Walkill Valley, the Albany and Susquehanna (later part of the Delaware and Hudson); the Elmira, Jefferson & Canandaigua (later the Northern Central, becoming part of the Pennsylvania Railroad); the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western mainline (which also had a significant amount of trackage in Pennsylvania); predecessor lines of the New York and Oswego Midland (later the New York, Ontario, and Western); and the Canandaigua and Niagara Falls (later becoming part of the New York Central railroad's Peanut Route along the shoreline of Lake Ontario). However, by the late 1870s, the trend was inevitable, and conversion to standard gauge began, some lines first becoming "dual gauged" with the addition of a third running rail. Between 1876 and 1880, most of the remaining six-foot gauge trackage was converted.[9]

In 1886, the railways in the Southern United States agreed to coordinate changing gauge on all their tracks. After considerable debate and planning, most of the southern rail network was converted from 5 ft (1,524 mm) gauge to 4 ft 9 in (1,448 mm) gauge, nearly the standard of the Pennsylvania Railroad, over two days beginning on 31 May 1886. Over a period of 36 hours, tens of thousands of workers pulled the spikes from the west rail of all the broad-gauge lines in the South, moved them 3 in (76 mm) east and spiked them back in place. The new gauge was close enough that standard-gauge equipment could run on it without difficulty. By June 1886, all major railroads in North America were using approximately the same gauge. The final conversion to true standard gauge took place gradually as track was maintained.^[10]

Some North American tram (streetcar) lines intentionally deviated from standard gauge. This may have been to make the tram companies less tempting targets for takeovers by the steam railways (or competing tram companies), which would be unable to run their trains over the tram tracks.^[11]

The use of a non-standard gauge precludes interoperability of rolling stock on railway networks. On the British Great Western Railway the 7 ft 1⁄4 in (2,140 mm) gauge was supposed to allow high speed, but the company had difficulty with locomotive design in the early years, losing much of the advantage, and rapid advances in railway track and suspension technology allowed standard-gauge speeds to approach broad-gauge speeds within a decade or two. On the 5 ft 3 in (1,600 mm) and 5 ft 6 in (1,676 mm) gauges, the extra width allowed bigger inside cylinders and greater power, a problem solvable by using outside cylinders and higher steam pressure on standard gauge. In the end, the most powerful engines on standard gauge in North America and Scandinavia far exceeded the power of any early broad-gauge locomotive, but then met limits set by other factors such as the capacity of manual stoking, the axle (and total) locomotive weight that would trigger upgrades to the rails and bridges, the maximum wheelbase and/or boiler length compatible with an individual route's curves.

In the 1930s German engineering studies focused on a Breitspurbahn system of railways of 3 meter gauge to serve Hitler's future German Empire.

High Speed Rail

Spain uses standard gauge track for its high speed railways in order to provide cross-border services with France and the rest of Western Europe, but runs high speed trains on its legacy broad gauge network at 200 km/h (120 mph) and are developing trains to travel at speeds in excess of 250 km/h (160 mph). Russia uses a modified

South Asia primarily uses the broad gauge for its passenger rail services and the fastest broad gauge train presently in the region is the Indian Railways'

4 ft 10+7⁄8 in gauge

This gauge is used by the Toronto streetcar system and the Toronto subway

5 ft and 1520 mm gauge

This gauge was first used in the United Kingdom and the United States before it became the standard gauge for most railways in the former Soviet Union.

Russian gauge or CIS gauge 1,520 mm (4 ft 11+27⁄32 in) is the second most widely used gauge in the world, and spans the whole of the former Soviet Union/CIS bloc including the Baltic states and Mongolia. Finland uses 1,524 mm (5 ft). The difference is clearly lower than the tolerance margin, so through running is feasible. Care must be taken when servicing international trains because the wear profile of the wheels differs from that of trains that run on domestic tracks only.

When the Finnish rail network was founded in 1862, Finland was the

As part of the railway gauge standardisation considered by the United Kingdom Parliamentary Gauge Commission, Ireland was allocated its own gauge, Irish gauge. Ireland then had three gauges, and the new standard would be a fourth.

The Irish gauge of 1,600 mm (5 ft 3 in) is used in Ireland and parts of

5 ft 4+1⁄2 in

This gauge was once used by the

The 5 ft 6 in (1,676 mm) gauge was first used in

Later this gauge was adopted as a standard for many British colonies such as

In 1851, the 5 ft 6 in (1,676 mm) broad gauge was officially adopted as the standard gauge for the

In US, this gauge was adopted for many lines, but soon fell out in favour of standard gauge. Today, only California's Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) uses this gauge.

In

• Large telescopes and telescope arrays.
• rocket launches from Kennedy Space Center, which use caterpillar tracks
  on a river stone roadbed because other solutions cannot support the loads required).
• Gantry crane for unloading cargo from ships, loading cargo onto ships and for constructing ships.
• Incline elevator and Canal inclined plane
  , for transportation on sloped way.

• Very broad gauges
• 
  Broad gauge track for CSIRO Australia Telescope in Narrabri
• 
  Dockside crane on wide gauge tracks at the former South Boston Naval Annex's Dry Dock Number 3
• 
  The Lärchwandschrägaufzug in Kaprun, Austria has a gauge of 8,200 mm (26 ft 10+27⁄32 in)
• 
  The Krasnoyarsk Dam's inclined plane is an electric rack railway having gauge of 9,000 mm (29 ft 6+5⁄16 in), making it the widest gauge railway of any type in the world

These applications might use double track of the country's usual gauge to provide the necessary stability and axle load. ^{[citation needed]} These applications may also use much heavier than normal rails, the heaviest rails for trains being about 70 kg/m (141 lb/yd). Vehicles on these gauges generally operate at very low speeds.

See also

• Breitspurbahn
• List of track gauges
• List of tram systems by gauge and electrification
• Ramsey car-transfer apparatus
• Track gauge

References