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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

#51

Post by vincnetas »

Sharlin wrote: post #23
hapidjus wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you can ”upgrade” the tracks to use three rails so you can handle both track widths. Also there are trains with adjustabe axle widths.

You’d need four rails, a 9 cm separation isn’t enough to fit two side by side. This solution has been ruled out as technically infeasible (I don’t even want to think about what the switches would look like…) Adjustable-gauge rolling stock has also been ruled out as incompatible with the Finnish climate. The most (only?) feasible way to do it is to “simply” build entirely new standard-gauge track next to existing trac…

This reminded me about a joke.

When engineers asked should we do the rails same width like in europe or wider, the answer they got from tzar was "Нахуй шире"

literal translation "wider by length of dick, but meaning "why the fuck we need wider"

- В Европе ширина колеи 1435 миллиметров. Нам делать так же или шире? - Нахуй шире, - ответил император.

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

#52

Post by pacifika »

panick21_ wrote: post #35

Doing this is a really nice opportunity for Finland. The should bundle it with many other upgrade. Doing general maintenance. Upgrade all the signaling (ETCS L2). Overhead electrify everything. Do minor speed upgrades. And so on. If you are not doing all of this at once, this likely isn't worth it.

I’d imagine that would make planning and implementation more complex

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

#53

Post by blueflow »

jabl wrote: post #46
blueflow wrote: post #41

Get a look on the track topology on openrailwaymap: https://www.openrailwaymap.org/?style=gauge&lat=62.774837258...

That's only the main tracks. There's a huge amount not seen on that map.

Scroll in.

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

#54

Post by Oarch »

pjc50 wrote: post #38
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.

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.

We absolutely can. They'd just be deeply uncomfortable.

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

#56

Post by thrdbndndn »

blueflow wrote: post #41

Get a look on the track topology on openrailwaymap: https://www.openrailwaymap.org/?style=gauge&lat=62.774837258...

The legend on this site is a joke. It's almost impossible to see the colors under the numbers, as they're only a few pixels wide: https://i.imgur.com/k8k394D.png

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

#57

Post by mytailorisrich »

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.

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

#58

Post by HPsquared »

M95D wrote: post #27
helsinkiandrew wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's only 89mm difference between the two widths - I'd guess that isn't enough room to have both on the same track.

This is how it looks (Galati, Romania): https://greatnews.ro/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/linia-ferata...

I can only imagine what the switches look like.

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

#59

Post by Vinnl »

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…

To be fair, if we imagine a future in which this did happen, the start would also look like this, so who knows.

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

#60

Post by HPsquared »

jabl wrote: post #37
Ekaros wrote: post #6

Just note Finland uses the Tsarist Russian 1524 mm gauge. Not the Allied Soviet 1520 mm gauge.

Not incidentally, 1524mm is exactly 5 feet. Which was the rail gauge widely used in the southern US states. The Russian tsar hired someone who had been building railroads in the US south to design his railroad, and here we are. The 1520mm was some Soviet effort to "metrify" their railways while keeping compatibility with existing rolling stock.

I wonder if they actually made new trains etc 4mm smaller, or if it was in name only.
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