[HN Gopher] The not-so-glamourous origins of standard railway tr...
___________________________________________________________________
The not-so-glamourous origins of standard railway track gauge
(2021)
Author : fanf2
Score : 33 points
Date : 2024-10-16 17:42 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (garethdennis.medium.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (garethdennis.medium.com)
| thmsths wrote:
| I feel like this story is even better than the wrong meme that
| sparked it.
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| ' in 1845, Robert Stephenson made the following statement: "If
| I had been called upon to do so, it would be difficult to give
| a good reason for the adoption of an odd measure -- 4 feet 8
| and a half inches." '
|
| Well, the half inch is accounted for , but not the original 5'
| plateway.
| jcranmer wrote:
| I think that the meme even had legs in the first place is due
| to the fact that 4'81/2" is an objectively weird gauge--why the
| 1/2"? That the 4'81/2" track gauge can be traced to
| Stephenson's decision isn't hard to figure out, nor is the fact
| that there is some measure of continuity between older forms of
| railway-like systems and railways. I expect that the meme came
| about from someone interpolating those facts to assume that the
| 4'81/2" gauge came from a precise reconstruction of some Roman
| thing, since it's also decently common knowledge that Roman
| units are not the same as imperial units. The rest of the meme
| (tying this fallacious history of the track gauge to the size
| of a rocket part) is very obviously complete balderdash to
| anyone with a modicum of railroad engineering.
|
| Or put more succinctly:
|
| The original meme: 4'81/2" exists because exact replica of
| Romans.
|
| The truth: As laid it, it was originally exactly 5'. But we
| changed what we use to measure gauge, so it's now reported as
| 4'8". Stephenson changed that to 4'81/2" because that allowed
| him to fix a problem he had without having to replace anything.
|
| And honestly, "cheap engineering fix" is a more interesting
| explanation to a conundrum than "Romans."
| legitster wrote:
| The grain of truth is that Romans and wagon builders and etc all
| determined that somewhere vaguely between 4 and 5 feet was an
| optimal width for vehicle axles. Which is not really a
| "standard", especially given Romans didn't even have a
| universally standard measurement system, but to a degree it's an
| interesting case of convergent design.
|
| Obviously people just love simple explanations and latching onto
| goofy conspiracies though are going to love drawing a straight
| line between any two points.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| If you walk around Pompeii, the paved streets still have ruts
| from wagons being driven through them, and the ruts seem to be
| fairly close to the standard railway gauge. Certainly close
| enough to provoke the idea.
| bragr wrote:
| >The predominant track gauge in the South was actually 5 feet.
| [...] had the Confederacy won the American Civil War the US would
| likely have adopted that as their standard gauge.
|
| That is a weird assertion, considering a victory for the
| Confederacy would have likely meant their independence, not
| taking over the North. Wouldn't a Confederate victory make the
| remaining Union states' options on standardizing easier?
| jcranmer wrote:
| The Pacific Railroad Act of 1863 established that the gauge of
| the first transcontinental railroad was to be 4'81/2", which is
| I believe the first time the US actually legally established a
| particular gauge. Some states had established their own
| (non-4'81/2") gauges before then, but it looks like by the eve
| of the Civil War, 4'8"-4'9" gauge (the various gauges in this
| range can be treated as identical for rolling stock purposes)
| was the plurality of track.
|
| By the Civil War, it looks like you have a Midwestern standard
| gauge, a Northeast standard gauge separated into two islands by
| a I think 5'6" New York/New Jersey gauge, and Ohio using a
| 4'10" gauge separating these two networks; the South's network
| --which is _far_ less dense--is 5 ' gauge; and now you get
| transcontinental railroads being planned for a 4'81/2" gauge.
| Now it is true that the Southern railroads largely switched to
| the 5' gauge as a result of connecting to the original few
| lines that connected isolated lines being 5', but a similar
| process in the North also broke up the non-standard gauge
| areas, and between the much smaller track area of the South and
| the fact that there were almost no 5' lines outside of the CSA,
| it is incredibly unlikely that the creeping 5' would ever have
| been adopted in the US.
|
| (From attempting to browse the Confederacy's laws, I don't
| think they ever fixed a gauge for the routes they authorized to
| be completed).
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| Plate way
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plateway
| basementcat wrote:
| I'm a little disappointed none of the train museums I've
| visited have mentioned plate ways or wagon ways.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wagonway
| blutack wrote:
| Author of this has an interesting live/realtime(?) podcast called
| "Railnatter" about the railways, public transport and UK
| infrastructure politics.
|
| Recently in the news as the UK government rail minister appeared
| to have directly requested he be sacked from the (private)
| company he worked at, after (pre-cleared with said company)
| comments he made to media about Euston station safety during peak
| times [0].
|
| 0: https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-rail-minister-peter-
| hendy...
| ttepasse wrote:
| Good thing that two decades before the Gauge Act there was the
| standardisation of the imperial units in the Weights and Measures
| Act. In the 20th century then the whole yard/feet/inch shebang
| got longer by a very minuscule measurement and then got redefined
| in meters.
| yzydserd wrote:
| I don't know if it's true, but I learned that the differing east
| and west European gauges were to stall any invasion.
|
| At any rate, I've had occasion to cross the Poland-Belarus border
| by train and while you're in the carriage they lift it several
| feet in the air and change bogies over the course of a couple of
| hours. At least a number of years ago when I did it. At the time,
| it was said in years gone by the authorities would conceal the
| passenger view during the procedure.
|
| I wonder if there remain many "live bogie" changing locations in
| operation around the world?
| ahazred8ta wrote:
| Yes, there are many 'break of gauge' points. They're mainly for
| historical inertia and economic reasons, but the military
| impediment is a known side effect.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_ft_and_1520_mm_gauge_railway...
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-10-16 23:02 UTC)