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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

#321

Post by bobthepanda »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #272
MyPasswordSucks wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Passenger travel is easy mode. The economic consequences of disrupted freight dwarf anything you could imagine from disrupted passenger travel of equal duration. That's why the US has always strived to do a really, really good job with their freight rail system, and US freight is still to this day generally considered the best freight rail system in the world, even as passenger rail lags well behind. Remember that fr…

Any competent shipper facing a train issue will just put the load on semis instead for 3-10x the price. Freight rail mainly exists as an low cost bulk carrier of convenience these days. Ships outcompete rail for bulk goods along inland waterways, and semis outcompete rail for network volume, ease of delivery, and adaptability to constraints.

This is not as true in the US where domestic shipping is subject to the expenses of the Jones Act.

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

#322

Post by firesteelrain »

lazide wrote: post #320
firesteelrain wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was 20 years after the Civil War. It consisted mostly of skilled and semi-skilled workers laborers that were White, African American and other immigrant labor. Chinese laborers were mostly concentrated in the West not the South. The reconstruction of the southern rail network involved many people who were part of the Southern economy and employment structure at that time

I believe that’s what I said.

"'86, in the south? Let's not be racist and assume the labor was Chinese - surely it was 95% recently freed black slaves paid almost nothing + 'free' prison labor. (/s, a little)."

It's not what you said

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

#323

Post by bobthepanda »

culopatin wrote: post #316
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.

Wouldn’t it be simpler to make a “train moat” by disconnecting rails from Russia? Or would they run the trains on dirt for a mile and re attach?

Building temporary bridges in wartime is pretty normal.

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

#324

Post by franktankbank »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #317
franktankbank wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see several trains go by per day on my pretty sleepy tracks. You have no clue the amount of semis that would need to be built to accommodate your proposal, they just do not wait in the wings. Do you think all the bulk shipments are being done for fun and someone isn't waiting for 5000 gallons of HCL and 2000 tons of coal?

I'm well aware that it's a couple hundred trucks to replace a single train. I'm not sure you understand that this is what already happens. Rail carries around a quarter of freight ton-miles in the US. Trucks carry much more than that. All of the stuff that isn't bulk, time insensitive freight, or anything that surges in excess of the carefully scheduled rail capacity already has to spill over onto trucks. That includ…

Thanks for the response. I'm curious what percent of stuff that would normally end up on train ends up as spillover onto trucks. Any idea? I think stuff is quite finetuned already and there may only be an extra few percent of capacity in trucks. I agree, in a lot of cases it might work to just bite the bullet and wait or try a different apparatus. However the stuff on the trains typically is not slackable. That is, you aren't transporting computers and sofas via rail.

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

#325

Post by iggldiggl »

sidewndr46 wrote: post #303
iggldiggl wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Train tracks are normally not precise to within 4mm anyway Yes they are. Of course practical tolerances including allowances for wear and there are large enough that things can be made to work, but in terms of nominal construction tolerances for example, 4 mm can easily eat up all your construction tolerances or even exceed them.

I obviously don't have a in depth knowledge of Finnish rail, but have you ever looked at rail in the US? I can show you tracks with completely missing ties. Tracks that move vertically by a foot when the train goes over them. Tracks that visually snake all over the place. The difference is made by slowing down the train. Derailment at 3 mph rarely matters. The biggest risk is the conductor doesn't know it happened &…

Sure, but even in the US that infrastructure state is usually only found on minor branch lines (shortlines), not on the main lines.

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

#326

Post by jabl »

Reason077 wrote: post #273
shaftoe wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(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.…

> "Today, there are less passenger trains than back then" I don't think this is true in Europe. Certainly in the UK, passenger rail volume since the 2010s has set records higher than in any previous years, exceeding numbers that were last seen before WW2. Today there are fewer miles of track than there were in that era, but modern signalling technology allows more trains to operate safely on the same tracks, and mode…

> As for freight, the US actually moves a significantly greater portion of its freight by rail than Europe does. Rail has around 40% modal share for freight in the US vs only 17% in Europe. One reason for this is that in Europe many lines are congested with passenger traffic, leaving few slots for freight trains to operate - except late at night.

It's also that rail tends to be more competitive for long haul traffic, and the US operators have big trans-continental freight networks well suited to that. In Europe there's a sharp drop off in modal share as freight crosses borders. Each national railway operator is in practice fiercely protective of its own turf, and there are a lot of hurdles to overcome. So in practice cross-border freight is largely done with trucks instead.

Despite the EU commission wanting to get some competition going on the rails and better interoperability requirements etc etc. for at least the past 30 years, the operators are still in the "discussion about preparing to setup a committee to discuss interoperability" phase.

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

#327

Post by orthoxerox »

dotancohen wrote: post #142
theshrike79 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference between Finnish and Russian gauge is 4mm IIRC the diff to European standard is closer to 10cm, still doable but a hurdle compared to just driving a trainload of troops to the middle of Helsinki it's a bit harder

> The difference between Finnish and Russian gauge is 4mm What is the acceptable tolerance? It doesn't sound like a huge engineering effort to design a boogie compatible with both without requiring switching.

There used to be a St.Pete-Helsinki high-speed train before the war, Allegro. It was built with bogies for a 1522mm gauge.

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

#328

Post by jillesvangurp »

bluGill wrote: post #261
jillesvangurp wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They'll probably go line by line. Here's a helpful overview from wikipedia: https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Finnish_railroad_netwo... I'm not sure how complete & up to date that is. But up north where the borders with Sweden and Norway are there isn't a whole lot of rail it seems. Norway's rail network doesn't extend that far. But Sweden gets pretty close to the Finnish border. I'm guessing a priority would be…

Problem with line by line is you need to have gauge switching systems someplace - line be line means you are moving all that.

The need for that is pretty much a given with this change. I don't think it's avoidable.

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

#330

Post by jabl »

siruncledrew wrote: post #277
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…

Did Britain start out with the same gauge as India? I kinda expected India and Britain to use the same gauge, and was a bit surprised. Also, what's going on in Australia?

> Did Britain start out with the same gauge as India?

No. There was some small lines in Scotland using the same gauge as India, but Britain had a bunch of different gauges and eventually standardized on 1435mm ("standard gauge") as that was the most common one.

I don't recall where I read it, but IIRC there was some motivation that they wanted a broader gauge for India because they were afraid cars would topple over during storms. Or something like that.

> Also, what's going on in Australia?

Each territory built its own railway, with no thought about eventually building a cohesive continental network. In some cases narrow gauge was chosen because it was thought to be marginally cheaper than standard gauge.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_gauge_in_Australia

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