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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

#421

Post by theshrike79 »

iggldiggl wrote: post #245
anticensor wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the acceptable tolerance is -4mm+7mm.

Where? Finland specifically, or elsewhere? Both my local tram system in Germany as well as DB as the national infrastructure operator in Germany have construction tolerances of only +/- 2 mm. Maintenance tolerances on the other hand can be quite a bit larger, at least in the plus direction (on the order of 15/20/25 mm).

I just wish the Germans would be as accurate with their train schedules as they are with their rail gauge tolerances :D

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

#422

Post by mikewarot »

crote wrote: post #356
Suppafly wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The tolerances are just a bit tighter, the risks and liabilities are higher, and the workforce just isn't "there" Sure, but they do it with big machines that ride down the rails now instead of lining up thousands of men with sledge hammers.

There are no ready-made gauge changing machines, though. Not exactly a big market for those.

There are ready-made machines that pull up track, and replace sleepers... it shouldn't be a major project to allow it to change the gauge of the rail as it resets it.

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

#423

Post by int_19h »

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.

I would also imagine that large-scale retrofitting of traincars with variable gauge adaptations is something that would be hard for foreign intelligence services (including the Finnish one to miss) - and would then serve as a signal that Russia is indeed preparing for an invasion.

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

#424

Post by int_19h »

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.…

> that would be either Georgia, Moldova, or the Baltics.

Or Kazakstan, although China might object there.

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

#425

Post by int_19h »

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…

Said brainwashing can still be more or less effective depending on how much material it can build upon.

More importantly, though, it can only be effectively applied on Russian territory, while real grievances among minority Russian populations in other countries can be exploited into fifth-columnizing them.

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

#426

Post by lukan »

yencabulator wrote: post #406
lukan wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With nukes, you can destroy anything. Otherwise the kerch bridge is still standing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_Bridge

Russia does not want that bridge to fall. Ukraine likely does but wasn't able to execute (outside of artillery range by now, limited access to long-range missiles, utter lack of sea power in the area, failure to anticipate circumstances enough to take it out while they still had control over area). All other countries are trying to not get involved, including not selling Ukraine (many) long-distance high destructive…

"I wouldn't generalize from that to "nobody could destroy a bridge".

Moving goalposts?

"That bridge is going to be incredibly easy to destroy"

Of course bridges can be destroyed. Also Ukraine would have succeded by now, if it really would have changed the war and justify the efforts.

(It doesn't anymore, since russia has the land train connections)

But it really ain't "incredibly easy", if that bridge is guarded. The failed attempts document as much - and Ukraine knows how to destroy things by now.

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

#427

Post by inglor_cz »

mmooss wrote: post #416
inglor_cz wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a lot easier to do with wooden sleepers than with concrete ones. You can drive new nails into wooden sleepers almost at will, so you can keep the sleepers in place and "just" move one rail to a different position. Concrete sleepers have pre-fabricated holes for the indicated gauge, which means replacing them. German soldiers re-gauged Soviet railways on a very short notice too when Barbarossa started.

Building a machine, if it doesn't exist, to rapidly make small holes in concrete shouldn't be hard.

It is not just holes. I didn't want to analyze the entire problem in full, but FIY, this is how a concrete sleeper looks like:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dayaen...

As you can see, the entire shape of the sleeper is adapted to the expected distance between rails.

In contrast, a wooden sleeper is just a straight log with no pre-made bumps for rails.

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

#428

Post by pydry »

oblio wrote: post #394
pydry wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can name about 8 who dont. The rest all belong to or tried to join a military bloc which helped rape Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan for no particular reason other than because the gang boss demanded it. It's more of mystery why particular kinds of westerners are especially sanctimonious about Moscow while bending over backwards to excuse nearly identical behavior from the west.

> The rest all belong to or tried to join a military bloc which helped rape Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan for no particular reason other than because the gang boss demanded it. Quick essay for 20 points, those countries all decided to join NATO BEFORE Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan. WHY did they decide to try to join NATO? Who were they running away from and why?

The promise to Ukraine was that they are going to be protected by their chosen gang rather than be cynically used to try and take down a rival gang.

The lie was laid bare once they were actually attacked. Article 5 protections - the only reason they are fighting this war - came off the table as soon as it became clear that the rival gang wasn't going to be taken down.

Quick essay for 30 points: write to a grieving mother campaigining against gangs explaining why even though her son joined the crips for protection and got murdered by a blood in the initiation phase, she needs to STFU about kids staying out of gangs. The reason is simple: she needs to STFU because several other 14 year olds who joined the crips for the promise of protection haven't yet had that promise tested.

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

#429

Post by lazide »

firesteelrain wrote: post #398
rz2k wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1886 is after The Compromise of 1877 which ended Reconstruction and lead to the rise of largely white supremacist Redeemer governments. Though versions of the Convict Lease System had started earlier, even before the Civil War, it was in full force by 1886 and even accounted for a significant portion of many states’ annual revenue. The supply of this labor was dramatically influenced by new laws that were selectively…

Ah yes, the 'absurdity' of enforcing laws and contracts; how dare a post-war society try to reestablish order without the constant supervision of federal troops. And of course, 'insulting gestures' clearly the backbone of any sinister system of oppression. It's amazing anything functioned at all without a daily constitutional check-in from the moral high ground

Those do-gooder Yankees and their war of northern oppression, amiright? (/s)

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

#430

Post by int_19h »

jcranmer wrote: post #409
vintermann wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, I don't read that at all. There's plenty of Russian propaganda that Westerners have fallen for hook, line, and sinker, chief among them the idea that all Russian speakers are actually Russian and want to be a part of the Russia. Oh yeah, other westerners, but not you. You take the foreign policy think tank line that Russians actually want to be balkanized. Just after saying that Putin has succeeded in brainwash…

Given the ample reporting of Russian speakers in places like Odesa switching to speaking in Ukrainian as a result of the 2022 invasion to distance themselves from Russia, or the difficulty the Russian occupiers of Ukraine has had in finding people willing to work for them, or the fact that the current president of Ukraine is himself a Russian-speaking Ukrainian , or the fact that in the 1991 referendum, a majority of…

But, similarly, don't confuse cultural identity with political one. That is really the crux of the issue here - self-identifying as Ukrainian or as Russian is very much a political question in Ukraine, and has been since their independence. This is also why you have this weird situation where several prominent Ukrainian military commanders and politicians have close direct relatives in Russia who are pro-war politicians there and who often were themselves born in Ukraine (or, conversely, the Ukrainian ones were born in Russia). So somebody may be Russian not just linguistically but culturally and ethnically as well, be born and raised in Russia, and still self-identify as Ukrainian today and speak the language solely as a marker of their chosen affiliation. And because it is a political identity in those cases, it can be very fluid - i.e. those very same people might be ones who have voted for Yanukovich 15 years ago precisely because he was seen as pro-Russian-language.

Ironically, this war will probably end up doing more to truly hammer out a single cohesive Ukrainian nation out of all the ethnic Russians in Ukraine than all the efforts of Ukrainian nationalists before it - assuming that Russia loses the war, that is.

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