Re: National guage standardisation - why 4'8.5"?

["David Bennetts" <davibenn@ozemail.com.au>]

"Dave Proctor" <daproc@spambait.ozemail.com.au> wrote in message
%SWC6.97986$N8.6523407@bin1.nnrp.aus1.giganews.com">news:%SWC6.97986$N8.6523407@bin1.nnrp.aus1.giganews.com...
>
> Not if you intend to run a high-speed, high-capacity railway. The only
> reason NG was cheaper than SG or BG was because the curves could be on a
> reduced radii, etc. and none of this amounts to much any more.

Not the only reason.  There's also less formation, smaller quantity of
ballast, and sleepers are shorter.  Not an insignificant cost in building
and maintaining a railway.

>
> > if you look at Queensland now
> > they run faster trains on a good 3'6" track than most of NSW,
>
> Purely because of alignments and electrification, nothing to do with the
> gauge. If the same thing had happened in NSW or Victoria, i.e. railways
> electrified, deviations put in place, etc., etc., etc. you would see
exactly
> the same result.

My point was that you can run trains up to 160 km/h on 3'6" track, and none
of the other states are capable of doing this on wider gauges maintained to
present standards.

> > and
> > practically all Victoria and South can do on a wider gauge maintained to
> > mediocre standard.
>
> You just knocked your own argument. The infrastructure in NSW and Vic is
> maintained to a mediocre standard. upgrade it, with deviations where
> necessary, as what happened in Queensland, and you would see a totally
> different railway (something like what is in Queensland).

No I didn't.  If there were 3'6" gauges in NSW, Victoria, etc the same
amount of money as presently spent on maintenance would have gone somewhat
further.  I agree that far more should have been done to upgrade with
deviations, but the reality is that rail doesn't get anywhere near its fair
share of funding.

The point is that we presently don't have any real advantage in terms of
speed or haulage capacity by using gauges wider than 3'6" - if a VFT working
on Shinkansen or TGV models were to arrive then of course we should build
their lines to standard gauge.

regards

David Bennetts