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Finland announces migration of its rail network to international gauge

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

#191

Post by vintermann »

Retric wrote: post #176
vintermann wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like most such things, it's probably mostly symbolic, so politicians can say they're doing something in defiance of Russia (which is a very popular thing to do in Finland right now, or most of the west for that matter). I guess they'll back down on it when by 2032, everyone realizes it doesn't matter since wars will be fought with small autonomous drones and any railroad would be sabotaged in an instant.

What kind of ranges are you expecting from these small drones so logistics suddenly doesn’t matter? Even if something can hypothetically travel thousands of miles, designing disposable weapons with that kind of range has a real cost.

Sure, logistics matter. I'm sure Russian-gauge railroads in Finland would be mildly convenient for invading Sweden, provided you can first invade and utterly defeat Finland quickly enough that the railways survive.

But if Putin could do that (he can't), railway gauges would be the least of our worries.

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

#192

Post by tekla »

anticodon wrote: post #80
cromulent wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Progress has been made and is ongoing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_Baltica#Project_progress

I've read your link. Where's the actual progress? But billions of euros has already been spent.

I doubt you've read the link since there are 3 sub-headers that explain the progress.

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

#193

Post by stuaxo »

dkdbejwi383 wrote: post #168
pjc50 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of Europe is already on the same track width. I'm not sure whether the loading gauge (allowed size of train to fit under bridges) etc. is also standardized; it wasn't for the UK, which is why we can't have nice things like double decker commuter trains.

> it wasn't for the UK, which is why we can't have nice things like double decker commuter trains I think bridge heights are the bigger problem here

We have a few lines with decent guages.

At almost every election before this version of Labour got in, the Tories would promise all sorts of rail projects then immediately cancel them after the election.

One project was a goods "spine" (all projects were "spines" at this point), that invovled improving the loading guage from Southampton upwards.

For routes where this happened I don't see why we couldn't upgrade the stations to a bigger loading guage and have double decker trains.

I've noticed all the bridges we get on stations these days are much higher.

I don't know if detailed guage maps exist - it would be interesting to know how many bridges and tunnels stand in the way of reguaging on various routes.

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

#194

Post by anticodon »

ceejayoz wrote: post #156
anticodon wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've read your link. Where's the actual progress? But billions of euros has already been spent.

Yes, that’s how things work. You spend money on projects before their completion, just like you buy ingredients for dinner before a meal arrives on your plate. I imagine you’re looking for the subheadings titled “completed in 2015” and “construction (2017-present)” though.

Today is 2025. Rail Baltica started in 2013.

Yes, I understand very well that "research" is a pipe, where you put billions of euros in one end, and get stack of papers on the other end. And somebody becomes rich in the process. Sapienti sat.

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

#195

Post by stuaxo »

danielovichdk wrote: post #76
Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Spain it's ongoing, very slowly, since the first international gauge high-speed rail line started operation in 1992. It's a slow and quite annoying process. For example, to reach my region, trains from Madrid have to change gauge because my region still has the old one. Apart from spending around 10 minutes doing this, this has caused a lot of problems because it essentially means there is a single model of 300 km…

I wonder if those trains was imported from Italy ? During the Danish transition to IC-4 some of those trains ended up with Gaddafi in Libiya ( https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2021/02/this-was-gaddafis-pers... )

Does that train have the British Advanced Passenger Train in it's ancestory? The carriage shape that is narrower at the top looks familiar.

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

#196

Post by radicalbyte »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #57
radicalbyte wrote: post #26

This is a strategic move: it makes it easier to move weapons within Europe and makes it much harder for Russia should they invade. Ideally you would want to do this all over Europe.

This only makes it potentially easier to move things from Norway and Sweden through the North of the country, and currently there are no railway from Norway to Finland (and they'll likely won't be) and Sweden to Finland has a single link (and would be destroyed within the first few hours of an invasion). So little actual difference.

It is extremely hard to put even a single land-based railway line out of action; just look at Ukraine. Yes lines are getting hit but there are engineering units who can repair them very quickly. You'd have to be within artillery range to really take it out.

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

#197

Post by pydry »

oblio wrote: post #173
pydry wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fear of foreign invasion is also why the Soviet Union invaded during the Winter War ("Greater Finland" irredentism was a thing, and St Petersburg was militarily exposed). Fear is why Finland allied with the Nazis. Fear is why the Soviet Union also signed a pact with the Nazis and invaded Ukraine. It's easy to justify anything with fear.

One is the biggest country on the planet, with 150 million people. The other one is about 300 sqkm with 5 million people. When in doubt, use basic logic. Your argument is the same as Iraq being a realistic threat against the US. Also, list of Russian neighbors not threatened or invaded by Russia: Belarus (pushed into a sort of union state) China (too big) Japan (I think) Mongolia (I think) Azerbaijan (I think) List o…

>Your argument is the same as Iraq being a realistic threat against the US.

Your argument appears to be that your enemy's fear driven by losing 27 million people during an invasion/war of extermination is exactly equivalent to your country's fear of weapons that were imagined solely for the purposes of justifying an invasion.

My argument was that it is quite easy to get a domestic population to treat all of the enemy's legitimate fears as utterly irrelevant while treating bullshit domestic fears as existential.

In a way I think you helped make this point for me by forgetting about those 27 million deaths.

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

#198

Post by jabl »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #178
ljlolel wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> would deter Russian invasion Does Russia still own a lot of 5-foot rolling stock? (Genuine question.) That’s what Finland is on [1]. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_ft_and_1520_mm_gauge_railw...

There's enough tolerance that you can run 1520mm rolling stock on 1524mm track and vice versa.

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

#199

Post by jabl »

paddy_m wrote: post #147
theshrike79 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russian military logistics _heavily_ depend on trains, everything that can go on a train, does so. Flight and vehicle stuff is mostly an afterthought. Any hindrance we can put on the Finnish-Russian border to stop them just unloading 12 cars of fresh troops in the middle of the country is a good thing.

Another fun note about Russian logistics, they aren't palletized or mechanized. Thought being that cranes don't look good in parades. The train side seems smart or at least interesting, the pallets incredibly dumb. https://x.com/TrentTelenko/status/1507056013245128716

Why invest in forklifts, container infrastructure etc. if your military has a near-endless supply of uneducated conscripts you can order to shuffle around shells and other items?

(Of course a more thorough analysis would probably come to the conclusion that better logistics is worth it. There's still an opportunity cost for those conscripts who could do something else instead, like dying in zerg rushes on the Ukrainian front. And even though those conscripts are 'free' they still require chow and a place to sleep etc.)

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

#200

Post by rsynnott »

Qwertious wrote: post #177
rsynnott wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Britain is no longer an island - it now has a tunnel connection to France, so as far as rail is concerned, it's a peninsula.

Yup, but it's just the one connection; even if there were a gauge difference it could be dealt with.
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