Indian broad gauge

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Comparison of different gauges:
  • Indian broad gauge

    • The Indian broad gauge is a 1676 mm (5½ foot or 5 foot 6 inch ) gauge used on railroads . It is the largest gauge in the world that is in frequent use and, together with the Iberian broad gauge, which is only eight millimeters narrower, forms around 6% of the global rail network.

    history

    This gauge was first found in Scotland on two short isolated lines - the Dundee and Arbroath Railway and the Arbroath and Forfar Railway , both of which were in service with this gauge from 1838 until the gauge changeover in 1847. The choice of this gauge goes back to the two Scottish engineers John Miller and Thomas Grainger . Both were of the opinion that a broad-gauge railway was better suited to transport large loads at high speed. With a wider track, larger wheels could be used, so that the friction in the axle bearings on straight tracks was reduced and thus less energy was required to move the trains. The greater width allowed goods to be moved between the wheels instead of over the wheels, resulting in rolling stock with a lower center of gravity and better stability.

    The introduction of the gauge in India goes back to a decision by the Scotsman James Andrew Broun-Ramsay , who was Governor General of British India from 1848 to 1856 . Ramsay, also known as Lord Dalhousie , was a cousin of William Maule , the donor of the Dundee and Arbroath Railway . As early as 1843 he was investigating the possibility of developing India by rail and proposed a connection between the three ports of Bombay, Calcutta and Madras . In the same year he traveled to India, where he founded the Bombay Great Eastern Railway together with a Parsen in 1844 , which planned a 36 km long double-track railway line from Bombay to Tannah . Due to financial problems, the company was dissolved again in 1845. The line was built by the successor company Great Indian Peninsula Railway and opened in 1853. The broad gauge became the standard for the main lines in the British colony on the Indian subcontinent, which is why it was used not only in India , but also in Pakistan , Bangladesh and Sri Lanka . Exceptions were the mountainous regions, where (762 mm) was constructed in the British track widths of 2 feet (610 mm) and 2 feet 6 inches, on branch lines was meter gauge used. Indian Railways are in the process of converting the meter-gauge routes to broad gauge as part of the Unigauge 'standard gauge ' project .

    The broad gauge also existed in North America and was called Provincial gauge or Portland gauge at that time . There were routes in Canada and the US states of Maine , New Hampshire and Vermont as well as Louisiana and Texas , where the gauge was required by law until 1875. This gauge of 5 feet 6 inches, as well as the gauge of exactly five English feet (1524 mm) used in the southern states of the USA, was largely replaced by the standard gauge in the 1870s and 1880s . The last railway line of this gauge in Canada, the Carillon and Grenville Railway , was shut down in 1910.

    Networks of this gauge also exist in Argentina (Miter, San Martín, Sarmiento and Roca subnets) and in Chile (between Valparaíso , Santiago de Chile and Puerto Montt ), but the broad-gauge lines have never been connected in either country. Vehicles that were originally built for the Iberian broad gauge are also used on the route networks, as only minor adjustments are necessary due to the small difference.

    This gauge was introduced in 1972 for the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) - the design of the BART rapid transit railways to connect San Francisco also has other peculiarities.

    Web links

    Commons : Indian broad  - track album containing pictures, videos and audio files

    Individual evidence

    1. ↑ Jürgen Janicki, Horst Reinhard: Rail Vehicle Technology . Bahn Fachverlag, 2008, p. 34 ( google.de [accessed on 23 August 2020] Figure 24: Share of gauges in the world railway network ISBN = 978-3-9808002-5-9).
    2. ^ Dundee & Arbroath Joint Railway. In: John Speller's Web Pages. Retrieved on August 23, 2020 (English).
    3. ^ Arbroath and Forfar Railway. In: Railscot. Retrieved August 23, 2020 .
    4. ↑ a b John Miller. In: Engineering Timelines. Retrieved August 23, 2020 .
    5. ^ Maule, Hon. William Ramsay (1771-1852), of Panmure and Brechin Castle, Forfar. In: History of Parliament Online. Retrieved August 23, 2020 .
    6. ^ History of Railways from Bombay to the rest of India. In: Railways of the Raj. Retrieved April 27, 2016 .
    7. ^ Glyn Williams: Railways in India. Retrieved August 23, 2020 .
    8. ^ Charles Cooper: The Provincial or Broad Gauge . In: railwaypages . 2010 ( amazonaws.com [PDF]).
    9. ^ Maine Central Railroad: Map, Photos, History & More. In: american-rails.com. Retrieved August 23, 2020 .
    10. ^ Houston and Texas Central Railway. TSHA, accessed August 23, 2020 .
    11. ^ Douglas J. Puffert: Tracks Across Continents, Paths Through History: The Economic Dynamics of Standardization in Railway Gauge . University of Chicago Press, 2009, ISBN 978-0-226-68509-0 , pp. 142 ( google.de [accessed on 23 August 2020]).
    12. ^ Argentine Railways, 1899. Geographic map. World Digital Library, 1899, accessed August 23, 2020 .
    13. ^ Raimundo Soto: Rail Transport in Chile . S. 257 ( apec.org [PDF] Table 11.1 Main railroads in Chile ).
    14. ↑ Talgo IV SOFSE. In: Photo gallery. vagonWEB, accessed on August 24, 2020 .