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Finland announces migration of its rail network to international gauge

yle.fi

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Re: Finland announces migration of its rail network to international gauge

#181

Post by FpUser »

ljlolel wrote: post #174
zokier wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is one reason for optimism here: Finnish rail network is in quite poor shape and needs major work done anyways. So switching gauge allows funneling more EU funding into these projects that would need to be done either way. I imagine that e.g. the infamous Suomi-rata and ELSA projects will be revived as gauge switch.

And would deter Russian invasion (supply lines rule everything around me) which would significantly reduce their large military spending.

Now you owe me a coffee and a keyboard

Re: Finland announces migration of its rail network to international gauge

#182

Post by 317070 »

rsynnott wrote: post #94
reddalo wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's very interesting. I wonder why Spain is different than the rest of Europe, given it's connected by land. It makes more sense for islands such as Ireland to retain their old gauge.

> It makes more sense for islands such as Ireland to retain their old gauge. Ireland's was kind of an accident; it wasn't even a case of retaining an old gauge as such; it's just that a different gauge won, and, being an island, this didn't matter. The first railway in Ireland was built in 1831 and was what's now called standard gauge. There were a bunch of competing companies, using standard gauge, 1600mm, and vario…

Ironically, Britain is now an island with an extremely busy train connection to continental Europe.

Soon, you might go from London to Köln without switching trains!

Re: Finland announces migration of its rail network to international gauge

#183

Post by m4rtink »

cladopa wrote: post #93
reddalo wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's very interesting. I wonder why Spain is different than the rest of Europe, given it's connected by land. It makes more sense for islands such as Ireland to retain their old gauge.

The reason is quite obvious if you know Spain's History. Given that France invaded Spain in 1807, the military made it necessary to have a different gauge from France. Not only that, the train by the coast was also forbidden in some places as a naval bombardment could disrupt communications in case of war. Spain has lots of mountains with a large plateau over 700 meters high and the coast is usually way lower so it m…

The Hisatsu line[1] in Japan was built through pretty insane terrain to make it protected from coastal attacks after the Russo-Japanese war.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hisatsu_Line

Re: Finland announces migration of its rail network to international gauge

#184

Post by WesolyKubeczek »

theshrike79 wrote: post #129
WesolyKubeczek wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or they will start with a few of the most important lines that connect the countries and ports.

That was the plan, one rail that can go from somewhere in Finland all the way to central Europe without stopping to change rail gauges.

See also: Rail Baltica

These projects are sloooooooow

Re: Finland announces migration of its rail network to international gauge

#185

Post by Gravityloss »

sbuttgereit wrote: post #175
vesinisa wrote: post #14

Here's a much better article from the Finnish public broadcaster giving more context: https://yle.fi/a/74-20161606 My comments: The important thing to note that at this point it's just a political posturing and an announcement of intent. They haven't shown any concrete technical plan how this would actually be executed. > "Of course, we are very pragmatic and realistic, we cannot do this in five years. Planning will…

On the other hand.... "Unification to standard gauge on May 31 – June 1, 1886 [United States] In 1886, the southern railroads 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, then the standard of the Pennsylvania Railroad, over two days beginning on Monday, May 31,…

Amazing.

I wonder if one can do anything like this with the current concrete sleepers and thermite welded tracks.

Re: Finland announces migration of its rail network to international gauge

#186

Post by kibwen »

vintermann wrote: post #164
kibwen wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if Russia's conquest of Ukraine were to end tomorrow, they would take a few years to recover before mounting their next offensive. And Finland isn't first in line on their list of next invasion targets, that would be either Georgia, Moldova, or the Baltics. And in any case, just as in computer security, a security posture does not need to be unassailable, it just needs to be expensive enough to deter the enemy.…

Russia can't just attack anywhere it wants to. Putin is not Kim Il-sung, he can't count on any order to be blindly obeyed. It took years of propaganda, unfortunately armed with a couple of actually good points (mostly supplied by the neonazi nationalist wing in Ukraine, who wanted a war), before he could try actually invading. He had to walk a dangerous game with his own, in particular with his own neonazi supporter…

As you suggest, Russia's invasion of Ukraine was bolstered by Russian sympathizers in the east. Every country bordering Russia is incentivized to break free of any sort of alignment with Russia in order to reduce the threat of local insurgency which will aid Russia in its invasion. For example, the Baltic countries removing Russian from their list of official languages, in addition to decoupling from the Russian power grid. There are a lot of steps to be taken, and a lot of them will take decades. Fortunately, Russia's capacity to wage war measured against their number of potential targets means that it would take them decades to reconquer it all, assuming Europe steps up to fund the defense. Train gauge alignment is just one of many steps towards this end, and the sooner the better.

Re: Finland announces migration of its rail network to international gauge

#187

Post by FpUser »

kibwen wrote: post #145
adrianmsmith wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One of the main goals of this is to not have the russian gauge available in case russians attack This doesn't seem like it can be a goal given > maybe in 2032 we can start construction I mean unless the plan is to assume Russia won't attack until e.g. 2040 when construction will be complete && Russia can't implement multi-gauge trains that Spain is already using now?

Even if Russia's conquest of Ukraine were to end tomorrow, they would take a few years to recover before mounting their next offensive. And Finland isn't first in line on their list of next invasion targets, that would be either Georgia, Moldova, or the Baltics. And in any case, just as in computer security, a security posture does not need to be unassailable, it just needs to be expensive enough to deter the enemy.…

>"Meanwhile, it increases the costs on Russia and slows their advance. It's a win no matter what."

Following logic it also increases your own costs and wastes money that could've been allocated to produce weapons and other more effective preventive measures.

Re: Finland announces migration of its rail network to international gauge

#188

Post by usrusr »

oblio wrote: post #110
vesinisa wrote: post #14

Here's a much better article from the Finnish public broadcaster giving more context: https://yle.fi/a/74-20161606 My comments: The important thing to note that at this point it's just a political posturing and an announcement of intent. They haven't shown any concrete technical plan how this would actually be executed. > "Of course, we are very pragmatic and realistic, we cannot do this in five years. Planning will…

Fear of a foreign invasion by a country much larger than your, and one that occupied you once for 200 years and attacked you again just 20 years after independence tends to clear the mind.

My only surprise is that they haven't already converted. It's not just about military aspects of an invasion, it's also about ease of deportation and ethnic substitution that would have to be expected afterwards in case of a Russian victory. That pattern is all too clearly established.

Re: Finland announces migration of its rail network to international gauge

#189

Post by stuaxo »

potato3732842 wrote: post #117
varsketiz wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the main goals of this is to not have the russian gauge available in case russians attack, so that logistics deeper into Finland cant happen easily with the same train, so backwards compatability is not desired.

It's not like this results in a categorical difference in difficulty. Gauge switching infrastructure is common at borders. Yeah stopping and switching is slower than driving right through but it's not the end of the world in the long tail of military logistics.

It adds time for each train though.

Re: Finland announces migration of its rail network to international gauge

#190

Post by 542354234235 »

dotancohen wrote: post #123
varsketiz wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The goal is defence - to prevent easy russian train logistics deep into Finland.

Wants to prevent the Russians from fielding dual gauge technology like the Spanish?

Dual gauge trains are technically much more complicated, making them more expensive to build, maintain, repair etc. Dual gauge do not work well (or at all depending) in the cold climate of Finland and if they did, the changeover takes time which adds up when you are trying to move thousands of cars worth of material. Dual gauge trains still need changeover stations, which are themselves expensive and complicated, as well as being targets for attack.

Unloading to new trains carry the same problems; expensive, time consuming, and make for excellent targets. Logistics are the least interesting part of war for most people, but are one of, if not the most, important part.

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