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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

#221

Post by vintermann »

kibwen wrote: post #210
vintermann wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The anti-Russian policies in the Baltics are dumb, they provide Putin with a good point to use in his propaganda, which is infinitely more useful to him than any railroad on foreign soil. He's co-opting the red army's defeat of Nazi Germany for his own popularity purposes. Which is impressive, considering he's also disavowing communism. It would hardly have been possible, if it weren't for fringe (but not fringe enou…

> The anti-Russian policies in the Baltics are dumb, they provide Putin with a good point to use in his propaganda This is dangerously naive. Propagandists like Putin don't need real grievances, they're happy to invent grievances and brainwash the population into believing them. In light of this fact, there's zero downside and nonzero upside to decouple from Russia (at least for any state which intends to remain inde…

What you're really saying here, is that Russians are fundamentally different people than you, because they fall for any dumb propaganda, whereas you don't.

Or maybe you accept that you are human too, vulnerable to the same thing, and maybe you are the brainwashed one, but you don't care?

Going down either of these roads ends you up with the neonazis in the long run (and yes, Russia has a lot of them too).

So no, it's not naive to point out the good points that feed the propaganda. What's naive is to think that dictators can manufacture good propaganda out of thin air anyway so it doesn't matter what "our side" is guilty of.

Putin is a gangster, not a cult leader. He's in it for himself, the people around him are in it for themselves. No one thinks he's selfless, least of all regular Russian people. It takes effort to keep something like that together. Unfortunately, he gets help from his foreign enemies.

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

#222

Post by burmanm »

varsketiz wrote: post #106
indiantinker wrote: post #100

TBH, it seems like a questionable way to spend EU money. Technically, it's fascinating, but unless it's part of a broader geopolitical or long-term interoperability strategy, it's hard to justify the costs. In Spain, we already deal with both Iberian and standard gauges—trains like the Talgo models can change gauges with minimal delay. It's not seamless, but it works reasonably well. Spain also has the world's second…

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

Far easier is to just destroy the train tracks with explosives that connect between Finland and Russia (or demolish them like done in Salla after letting them rot).

There's no defensive reason for this other than in the cabinet talks.

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

#223

Post by FpUser »

kibwen wrote: post #213
FpUser wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"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.

Fortunately, a country can pursue many things simultaneously, which is often more generally effective than pursuing a single thing to the detriment of all others, thanks to diminishing returns.

>"...than pursuing a single thing..."

Where did I say about single thing: "...weapons and other more effective preventive measures..."

Looking from the other angle - should Russia attack it'll trigger article 5. Russia can not win conventional war with NATO. It is just laughable. They're not that suicidal. And if they are it'll escalate to nuclear and then the railroad will be your last worry.

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

#224

Post by IAmBroom »

bell-cot wrote: post #165
dotancohen wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if the Spanish can muster dual gauge trains, what's to prevent the Russians from doing the same? Or is the Finnish gauge a state secret?

> what's to prevent Conceptually? Nothing. But building such trains, at scale , takes a load of resources. Resources which could otherwise be used to build tanks, guns, missiles, and similar high-priority products.

Also:

> what's to prevent

Russian lack of logistical planning.

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

#225

Post by IAmBroom »

rmind wrote: post #209
kibwen wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 powe…

"Removing Russian from their list of official languages"? It was never an official language in the first place.

In the distant past of the 1990s, it was.

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

#226

Post by shaftoe »

close04 wrote: post #214
IAmBroom wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The welds could be cut and rewelded, obviously. The sleepers are molded with preset widths, however, and would need replacement.

Probably the biggest challenge is that there is way more rail traffic today and it's more tightly coupled in logistics chains and people's day to day lives. Disruptions are more expensive and harder to tolerate. And that's on top of the technical challenges, tolerances leave less room for error today.

(US centric assumption)

It might be easier to change today than it was in 1886. Back then, trains were really the only means of travel between cities. Today, there are less passenger trains than back then, though more freight (even with trucks and planes). But freight diversions/delays could be scheduled well in advance and have alternative means. Not to mention, since then we've developed variable gauge train tech. A subset of trains could run during the cutover.

It's likely more costly today, but less disruptive.

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

#227

Post by IAmBroom »

vintermann wrote: post #203
kibwen wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 powe…

The anti-Russian policies in the Baltics are dumb, they provide Putin with a good point to use in his propaganda, which is infinitely more useful to him than any railroad on foreign soil. He's co-opting the red army's defeat of Nazi Germany for his own popularity purposes. Which is impressive, considering he's also disavowing communism. It would hardly have been possible, if it weren't for fringe (but not fringe enou…

[flagged]

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

#228

Post by StefanBatory »

pydry wrote: post #197
oblio wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's such a mystery why all neighbours of Russia hate Russia and Russians.

If only there was a reason for this.

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

#229

Post by yason »

The project is theoretically a good idea but it's not really practical, and nobody is honestly suggesting it for real -- surely plans are cheap, and planning is even cheaper. But there are fewer than handful of railway lines crossing over the eastern border to Russia. Those can be blown up for good, for long enough distance that it's not feasible for Russia to rebuild track and reconnect to the main network should they, at some point, want to fall in love with Finnish rail. Other than that, the only other rail connection is to Sweden up north where there's already some arrangements to accommodate two gauges. At this point we run out of new reasons to change the gauge, Finland is effectively an island when it comes to European railway network. Surely it would be nice to standardise with the rest of the Europe but it's not much more than that.

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

#230

Post by theshrike79 »

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

Compare this to the completely bonkers logistics of the US Military: https://youtu.be/iIpPuJ_r8Xg

Even Unicef has a massive logistics center in Denmark with pallets of stuff categorised and ready to be sent for any emergency: https://www.unicef.org/supply/warehousing-and-distribution

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