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I've started to substantially redo this page to make it a bit more readable. Split into sections, and I've laid out the per-country stuff by continent and then by nation in headers. A lot of work still to do. —Morven 20:05, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC)
The very heavy narrow trains in South Africa and Queensland, Australia (10,000t or more) show that narrow gauge is capabable of almost as much as the broader gauge.
A lot of the arguements about narrow versus broad gauge are really false. What is important is the strength of track (rails, sleepers, roadbed) and loading gauge (tunnels, bridges and platforms).
Australia has suffered greatly from a lack of uniform gauge, and it has been a costly exercise to rectify even part of the problem. At least all the mainland capitals are connected by uniform gauge mainlines, albeit lines full of low speed curves and gradients - but that is another problem.
AWS 09:59, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Can somebody explain to me the following sentence from this article:
There are most definately railways with a gauge between 3ft6in and standard gauge. The Glasgow Subway with a gauge of 4ft for example. Are we saying they are not narrow gauge (in which case what are they?) or what?. -- Chris j wood 23:25, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I think, the East Germany-Link is misdirecting. I think correctly is a link to germany or States of Germany. see also content in http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schmalspurbahn ; http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_der_Schmalspurbahnen_in_Sachsen (Sachsen). greetings from germany! -- Rotkäppchen 13:16, 23 May 2005 (UTC)
There are a couple of references to miniature railways in the text, notably in the United Kingdom section. There is a significant distinction between narrow gauge and miniature railways. Also, the miniature railways link takes you to the model railways page, which is incorrect: miniatures are neither narrow gauge nor model railways. I'd propose the creation of a specific page describing miniature railways, with the specific links to the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch and others minatures moved there.
Gwernol 03:29, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Does anyone think it might be a good idea to split the country specific lists in this article into say Narrow gauge railways in Europe and Narrow gauge railroads in North America etc etc, as this article is getting rather long. G-Man 23:04, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
I'd like us to reconsider this question. The article is getting out of hand (in my opinion, obviously). We now have country articles that list detailed histories of particular lines, which is inappropriate for an overview of the ng railways in that country. The latest addition to the US section on the HE&WT is a pretty detailed history of a railway which hasn't been narrow gauge for almost 120 years. The content is great but should be in a separate HE&WT article, not here. There are plenty of other examples of this problem spread throughout the article.
I think its time for someone to be bold and start a radical pruning of the article. I am happy to do this. I won't remove any content, just move some of it to a more appropriate location, whether that's an existing article or a new one. I propose as a guiding principle that detailed line histories don't belong here, general overviews of the role of narrow gauge railways in a particular country do.
Thoughts? Gwernol 16:18, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
Unsoureced, but I've heard WPYR op the last domestic-use narrow-ga steam loco built (by Baldwin), now in the Baldwin museum. Trekphiler 23:30, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
Anyone got any info on fastest 2ft gauge trains?
Contradiction here:
from the introduction:
On the other hand, standard-gauge railroads have a greater haulage capacity and allow greater speeds than those a narrow-gauge system can ever hope to attain.
and lower down:
There is a common myth that narrow gauge trains are not able to run at the same high speeds as those networks with broader gauges. This has been recently disproven in Japan and Queensland, Australia,
I'll let someone who knows the subject better than me reword it properly. -- 81.179.196.211 19:19, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
The 1st statement still holds true today ... at least "rapid trains" run at speeds of 330km/h in standard gauge and only at 160km/h in narrow gauge ... and anyone cares to comment about tons per axle on the various gauges ??? being the limiting factor the tecnical/mechanical limitations of rail , suspensions and such ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sotavento ( talk • contribs) 05:45, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
The article contains the following enigmatic statement:
I think this deserves more explanation. Why exactly would a drawbridge merit a higher speed restriction than a level crossing?. Surely both entail exactly the same risks of collision etc. -- Chris j wood 20:51, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
I'm very uncomfortable with several of the statements made in this article. I also don't like the tone that some of it is written in. For example;
"But most narrow-gauge lines were constructed as stand alone "feeders" entirely dependent upon transshipment to a larger main-line network." - This seems like something that would be hard to verify, and my own experience with the subject matter tells me that in fact most narrow gauge lines were NOT feeders, but in fact survived as railways independant from, and not connected to, any kind of standard gauge network. The author of this article only notes large narrow gauge networks as being those which avoid the "narrow gauge to standard gauge" problem, but in reality I've found that most of these types of narrow gauge lines are the smaller, industry serving types.
"One of the finest is the 600 mm narrow-gauge railway (Żnińska Kolej Powiatowa) running from Żnin via Wenecja (Polish Venice) and famous Biskupin to Gąsawa in the Pałuki region." - One of the FINEST? Finest by who's definition? This is definately not NPOV.
"The massive narrow-gauge (3 ft 6 in, 1067 mm) coal trains of the Queensland Railway with 100 wagons and 2 midtrain electric locomotives show what is possible with narrow gauge if you strengthen the track enough" - I don't like the tone of this statement at all. This at least needs to be reworded.
"Much work has been done to rectify the gauge chaos, but there is still much to do. By and large any uniform gauge would have done the job satisfactorily." - Again, difficult or impossible to verify, also reads with the wrong tone, sounds like POV rather than NPOV. This needs rewriting at best, perhaps simply removing the bits that cannot be verified and replacing them with facts.
Whoever wrote this needs to know that while their contribution is valuable, they've left a lot of mess for people to clean up. -- Badharlick 16:00, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
There were and are also many narrow gauge street tramways, particularly in Europe, where the need for a narrow body width meant that a track gauge of a metre was necessary (trams are usually wider than the tracks they run over) (emphasis mine: this statement is hilarious Peter Horn 15:31, 18 August 2006 (UTC)). A notable example of this is the tramway system of Linz, Austria.
O please, please, even the narrowest tram is wider than the 1435 mm or 56.5" of standard gauge. The only consideration here would be lesser construction costs. Peter Horn 15:31, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
Quite a number of statements on this article regarding the reasons for narrow gauge being chosen over standard gauge are false. Just to relieve any confusion, I'd like to take the time to note the real reasons here.
The first myth is that narrow gauge is in most cases lightly laid, and that this is due to cost saving reasons. This is not the case; generally only temporary systems, hand worked systems, and systems using only very light locomotives have lightly laid track. The latter is the only case where cost is maybe an issue, but usually any money saved is only incidental.
The second myth is that narrow gauge is only chosen as an alternative to standard or broad gauge for just one single reason (cost OR size). While in a handful of cases this may be true, the reality is that there are multiple reasons which stack up to outweigh the benefits of any other gauge. These reasons are cost of construction (sleepers and rails are not as heavy, trackbeds are not so large, gradients can be steeper and curves can be tighter), cost of equipment (smaller locomotives and rolling stock mean lower initial investment and lower running costs), flexibility (extensions and pointwork can be added easily and be done by existing employees without the need for contractors or lengthy downtime) and resulting economic working compared to standard gauge branch line operation carrying the same quantity of freight.
The third myth is that narrow gauge suffers because it cannot interchange equipment with standard gauge or broad gauge networks in countries where standard or broad gauge is the norm. This is simply not the case, and it is certainly not "the most fundamental problem" as the article describes. Far from it, transfer points where freight or passengers transfer from narrow to standard gauge trains have been proven to incur only negligable costs (if any) that still do not outweigh the cost of standard gauge running. Even in the event of a situation where a standard gauge line would be more cost effective, such a line would've been chosen and built instead. Very few lines were actually built to a narrow gauge for cost saving reasons only, and such poorly thought out affairs did not last very long, nor did their accompanying industries. The ability to exchange equipment is only a convenience, rather than a necessity - having freight transferred multiple times before it reaches it's destination slows down the transport time, and eventually becomes too expensive and cumbersome.
The first mistake is to compare narrow gauge to standard gauge. Narrow gauge is not there to do the job of standard gauge, narrow gauge is there because the job is too small to merit the use of standard gauge, but still large enough to merit some form of rail borne transport. It's what goes between road transport and standard gauge railways. Generally operating a standard gauge line to do the job of a narrow gauge line is too fuel intensive for the small amounts of freight being transported. Lorries also present a similar problem, having only limited capacity and therefore having to make several trips is too fuel intensive.
While there are many contradictions, incorrect statements, and other problems with this article, I hope that I've cleared up some of the most glaring issues for future editors/contributors. -- Badharlick 04:24, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
Just a couple of engineering opinions about this issue: 1st - (with respect to the narrow-gauge advantage in mountainous terrain} the advantage of greater allowable curvature is valid (assuming shorter rolling stock) but narrow gauge has no advantage with respect to steeper grades. Steeper grades just come with mountainous country. Greater frictional forces for multiple smaller cars carrying the same tonnage actually puts the narrow gauge at a disadvantage with respect to grades. In theory, greater curvature would reduce grades with fewer and smaller bridges and minimized earthwork construction.
2nd - The issue of freight transfer costs should be considered in comparison to interest payments on the increased capital costs of standard gauge bridges, rails, sleepers, ballast, and earthwork cut and fill. Internal combustion earthmoving machinery dramatically reduced construction costs; and the freight transfer issue is too often discussed for a facility after the original construction cost differences have been minimized by inflation and/or accepted as investor losses through bankruptcy, receivership, reorganization, or nationalization. Thewellman ( talk) 19:12, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
The article says, "Non-industrial narrow gauge mountain railways are or were common in the Rocky Mountains of Canada..." No they weren't. There were no narrow gauge railways built in the Canadian Rockies. There were narrow gauge railways built in the Columbia Mountains to the west, and the Foothills to the east, and the American Rockies to the south, but I don't know of any built in the Canadian Rocky Mountains proper. Railroading in the Canadian Rockies was a serious engineering exercise not suitable for undercapitalized companies, and all the companies who did build railways there (Canadian Pacific, Canadian Northern, Grand Trunk Pacific, and Pacific Great Eastern) built standard gauge. RockyMtnGuy 02:30, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
This article is getting very large. Authors should consider daughter articles for detailed infomation on various systems and countries. -- Michael Johnson 00:02, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
Do the mules realy run on narrow gauge track, if so, which gauge? Peter Horn 01:01, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
Variable gauge axles are simply not an option as there is simply not enough space (room) for the mechanisms between the backs of the wheels when they are in the narrow gauge position. Peter Horn 01:45, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
Narrow gauge railways with increase maximum axle load which must increase the number of sleepers per kilometer. 121.102.47.39 ( talk) 10:03, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
Oh please. Any gauge can support any radius curve as small or short as 40 ft or 12.2 m as is particularjy the case of tramway track. The rolling stock on any gauge is adapted to or designed for the minimum radius of curvature to be negotiated. Peter Horn 19:26, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
"Narrow gauge allows tighter turning in restricted city streets." Are you kidding? The one time 1,435 mm (4 ft 8+1⁄2 in) trams of Montreal and the present day 58.875Toronto trams turn just as nicely in "restricted city streets". The rolling stock on any gauge is adapted to or designed for the minimum radius of curvature to be negotiated. Peter Horn 01:37, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
I have started a paragraph for narrow-guage railways in Romania and I can add to it as more lines are renovated and up-and-running. However, I am not a technical expert or an expert on railway history in Romania - can others help provide this information?
Also, I think the Hungary paragraph in this article should then be changed. It currently reads: "Following the Treaty of Trianon some railways were cut by the new border, many remained on the territory of Romania, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia.... Freight haulage on the few remaining lines continued to decline until 1990 from when a patchwork of railways was gradually taken over by associations and forest managements for tourist purposes." Text concerning lines - like the Valea Vasar Mocanita - which are situated in a place that is no longer part of Hungary (the Treaty of Trianon was in 1920) should be moved to a paragraph for the country which now applies. I propose removing from the Hungary paragraph "Freight haulage on the few remaining lines continued to decline until 1990 from when a patchwork of railways was gradually taken over by associations and forest managements for tourist purposes", and putting into the Romania paragraph "From 1990 some narrow guage lines were taken over by associations and forest managements for tourist purposes"; paragraphs for other countries can also adapt the same text as appropriate. (Unfortunately, I don't know enough about the history of railways in Romania to be willing to transfer the deleted sentence verbatim). Any objections? Frankieparley 13:52, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
I've removed the following paragraph from this section:
I'm not sure this is true - standard gauge railways have also proved vulnerable to competition from trucks. Trucking can also suffer from transshipment issues, of course. Most importantly, without any sort of citation this is really just original research which should be avoided.
Unfortunately, the entire section suffers from a lack of citations. It would be really useful if we could all help find relevant sources and add them to this section to avoid it appearing to be personal opinions. Gwernol 18:03, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
Hi, I have recently changed the layout of the individual country sections so that the thumbnail images appear below the text, like this:
Portugal had hundreds of km of 1 gauge railways, including: Linha do Porto à Póvoa e Famalicão - Closed. Some of the old trackbed is now used by the Oporto's Metropolitan railcars. Linha de Guimarães - Closed between Guimarães and Fafe, converted into a bike way. The rest is now broad gauge. Linha do Tâmega. Linha do Corgo. Linha do Tua. Linha do Sabor. Linhas do Vale do Vouga. Linha do Dão.
At least one passenger service known as the Linha do Tâmega is still in operation. It runs between Livração and Amarante in the District of Porto and runs near the River Tâmega.
I prefer this layout, as it allows the text to flow naturally regardless of the number of images present. What do other editors think? Is there a better layout? Thanks, Gwernol 15:57, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
Can someone please undo the recent move from "Narrow gauge railway" to "Narrow gauge rail transport". The original title was entirely apposite, a redirect from "narrow gauge railroad" covering the common English alternative. The current title is not in common usage and appears nowhere in the article, however "narrow gauge railway" occurs 18 times and "narrow gauge railroad" 11 times. Let's not invent new terms which are rarely if every used. Bermicourt ( talk) 17:57, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
Narrow gauge rail transport#Advantages of narrow gauge I dispute the parts about radii. Peter Horn 22:03, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
Editors should be clear that the disadvantage relates specificity to a narrower gauge, not to other factors like loading gauges. -- Michael Johnson ( talk) 01:59, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
If "Narrow Gauge" were to refer to railways 3ft 6in track gauge and below, then what would one do with the poor old Padarn Railway in North Wales, that used a gauge of 4ft 0in? It certainly isn't Stephenson's Gauge! 80.229.210.97 ( talk) 14:55, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
Narrow gauge really refers to anything smaller than standard gauge - practically speaking, it's anything less than 4 feet 8 inches (1,422 mm). The costs of constructing 4 ft gauge wouldn't be significantly different than standard gauge so, although it meets the technical definition of narrow gauge, it's a rather pointless narrow gauge. The point of using gauges of 3 feet 6 inches (1,067 mm) and narrower was that there were some theoretical advantages in construction costs. RockyMtnGuy ( talk) 20:47, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
There are many narrow gauge street tramways, particularly in Europe where 1,000 mm (3 ft 3+3⁄8 in) gauge tramways are common. Narrow gauge allows tighter turning than 1435 gauge or 1495 gauge in restricted city streets dubious – discuss. The tighter turning circle make balloon loops at the end of routes easier, which in turn allows the use of unidirectional trams with a driver's cab at one end only, and doors on one side, allowing more space for passengers dubious – discuss. Nonsense! The Toronto trams are capable to turn on a 36-foot (10.97 m) radius. So this paragraph should be deleted alltogether as nonsense. Peter Horn User talk 00:02, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
Re: Narrow gauge railway#Taiwan. Give me a break, exchanging narrow gauge bogies for standard gauge ones should not be prohibitively expensive. When I worked for the Montreal Locomotive Works, MLW built locomotives for Peru and supplied both standard gauge and 36 Bogies for them. Similarly when MLW built locos for Tunisia these were supplied with both standard gauge and metre gauge bogies, not mounted at the same time of course. Peter Horn User talk 21:15, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
Why does the tile of this article omit the hyphen? Michael Hardy ( talk) 17:14, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
In what order should the following narrow gauge pioneers be put in? And are there any other pioneer characters? Was the choice of the Norwegian narrow gauge influenced by the gauge successfully chosen by Queensland, or visa versa?
Tabletop ( talk) 11:28, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
There are many Gauges with roundabout 3 ft (English, Swedish, Castilian, etc.), e.g.
So we really should have a section for "three foot gauge railways". axpde Hello! 20:47, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
{{
see also|
List of rail gauges}}
to the top of the "Gauges used" section, and will raise the other matter at
Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Trains.
Tim PF (
talk)
08:52, 3 May 2011 (UTC)There is a chapter "successful narrow gauge". According to actual version of this article, "successful" seams to mean fast and heavy. According to the number of passengers (in relation to the population), Japan and Switzerland have the most successful rail systems in the world, and both countries have large narrow gauge networks. I think, the success of narrow gauge railways is to make a larger network in less populated regions affordable. So I think this chapter should rather get a new title "narrow gauge main line" and may be the fact with Switzerland and Japan should be mentioned. Helmigo ( talk) 00:19, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
why is the text centred in the page, with left edge jagged? It looks strange, and not like other wiki pages. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.68.6.12 ( talk) 21:02, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
Unlike Australia, Brazil and South Africa, New Zealand does NOT AFAIK operate 200 wagon trains, and should not therefore be included as a Successful narrow gauge railways.
Tabletop ( talk) 13:54, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
"There are hundreds of kilometeres of 600 mm (1 ft 11 5⁄8 in), 750 mm (2 ft 5 1⁄2 in), 785 mm (2 ft 6 9⁄10 in), and 1,000 mm (3 ft 3 3⁄8 in) narrow gauge lines in Poland." propaganda BS; There where - is better time/tense; 99% of lines is scraped or is destroyed and not available to use [include the bigest web of narrow lines in Europe in Kujawy / east Greatpoland, what is the biggest lost for any narrow railway fan!]. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.20.149.11 ( talk) 00:41, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
It can not be said, that interchange problems are generally a disadvantage of narrow gauge. If we, for example, talk about South African Gautrain, interchange is just in the opposite, an argument against standard gauge and for narrow gauge!-- Helmigo ( talk) 16:33, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
I've started to substantially redo this page to make it a bit more readable. Split into sections, and I've laid out the per-country stuff by continent and then by nation in headers. A lot of work still to do. —Morven 20:05, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC)
The very heavy narrow trains in South Africa and Queensland, Australia (10,000t or more) show that narrow gauge is capabable of almost as much as the broader gauge.
A lot of the arguements about narrow versus broad gauge are really false. What is important is the strength of track (rails, sleepers, roadbed) and loading gauge (tunnels, bridges and platforms).
Australia has suffered greatly from a lack of uniform gauge, and it has been a costly exercise to rectify even part of the problem. At least all the mainland capitals are connected by uniform gauge mainlines, albeit lines full of low speed curves and gradients - but that is another problem.
AWS 09:59, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Can somebody explain to me the following sentence from this article:
There are most definately railways with a gauge between 3ft6in and standard gauge. The Glasgow Subway with a gauge of 4ft for example. Are we saying they are not narrow gauge (in which case what are they?) or what?. -- Chris j wood 23:25, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I think, the East Germany-Link is misdirecting. I think correctly is a link to germany or States of Germany. see also content in http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schmalspurbahn ; http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_der_Schmalspurbahnen_in_Sachsen (Sachsen). greetings from germany! -- Rotkäppchen 13:16, 23 May 2005 (UTC)
There are a couple of references to miniature railways in the text, notably in the United Kingdom section. There is a significant distinction between narrow gauge and miniature railways. Also, the miniature railways link takes you to the model railways page, which is incorrect: miniatures are neither narrow gauge nor model railways. I'd propose the creation of a specific page describing miniature railways, with the specific links to the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch and others minatures moved there.
Gwernol 03:29, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Does anyone think it might be a good idea to split the country specific lists in this article into say Narrow gauge railways in Europe and Narrow gauge railroads in North America etc etc, as this article is getting rather long. G-Man 23:04, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
I'd like us to reconsider this question. The article is getting out of hand (in my opinion, obviously). We now have country articles that list detailed histories of particular lines, which is inappropriate for an overview of the ng railways in that country. The latest addition to the US section on the HE&WT is a pretty detailed history of a railway which hasn't been narrow gauge for almost 120 years. The content is great but should be in a separate HE&WT article, not here. There are plenty of other examples of this problem spread throughout the article.
I think its time for someone to be bold and start a radical pruning of the article. I am happy to do this. I won't remove any content, just move some of it to a more appropriate location, whether that's an existing article or a new one. I propose as a guiding principle that detailed line histories don't belong here, general overviews of the role of narrow gauge railways in a particular country do.
Thoughts? Gwernol 16:18, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
Unsoureced, but I've heard WPYR op the last domestic-use narrow-ga steam loco built (by Baldwin), now in the Baldwin museum. Trekphiler 23:30, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
Anyone got any info on fastest 2ft gauge trains?
Contradiction here:
from the introduction:
On the other hand, standard-gauge railroads have a greater haulage capacity and allow greater speeds than those a narrow-gauge system can ever hope to attain.
and lower down:
There is a common myth that narrow gauge trains are not able to run at the same high speeds as those networks with broader gauges. This has been recently disproven in Japan and Queensland, Australia,
I'll let someone who knows the subject better than me reword it properly. -- 81.179.196.211 19:19, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
The 1st statement still holds true today ... at least "rapid trains" run at speeds of 330km/h in standard gauge and only at 160km/h in narrow gauge ... and anyone cares to comment about tons per axle on the various gauges ??? being the limiting factor the tecnical/mechanical limitations of rail , suspensions and such ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sotavento ( talk • contribs) 05:45, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
The article contains the following enigmatic statement:
I think this deserves more explanation. Why exactly would a drawbridge merit a higher speed restriction than a level crossing?. Surely both entail exactly the same risks of collision etc. -- Chris j wood 20:51, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
I'm very uncomfortable with several of the statements made in this article. I also don't like the tone that some of it is written in. For example;
"But most narrow-gauge lines were constructed as stand alone "feeders" entirely dependent upon transshipment to a larger main-line network." - This seems like something that would be hard to verify, and my own experience with the subject matter tells me that in fact most narrow gauge lines were NOT feeders, but in fact survived as railways independant from, and not connected to, any kind of standard gauge network. The author of this article only notes large narrow gauge networks as being those which avoid the "narrow gauge to standard gauge" problem, but in reality I've found that most of these types of narrow gauge lines are the smaller, industry serving types.
"One of the finest is the 600 mm narrow-gauge railway (Żnińska Kolej Powiatowa) running from Żnin via Wenecja (Polish Venice) and famous Biskupin to Gąsawa in the Pałuki region." - One of the FINEST? Finest by who's definition? This is definately not NPOV.
"The massive narrow-gauge (3 ft 6 in, 1067 mm) coal trains of the Queensland Railway with 100 wagons and 2 midtrain electric locomotives show what is possible with narrow gauge if you strengthen the track enough" - I don't like the tone of this statement at all. This at least needs to be reworded.
"Much work has been done to rectify the gauge chaos, but there is still much to do. By and large any uniform gauge would have done the job satisfactorily." - Again, difficult or impossible to verify, also reads with the wrong tone, sounds like POV rather than NPOV. This needs rewriting at best, perhaps simply removing the bits that cannot be verified and replacing them with facts.
Whoever wrote this needs to know that while their contribution is valuable, they've left a lot of mess for people to clean up. -- Badharlick 16:00, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
There were and are also many narrow gauge street tramways, particularly in Europe, where the need for a narrow body width meant that a track gauge of a metre was necessary (trams are usually wider than the tracks they run over) (emphasis mine: this statement is hilarious Peter Horn 15:31, 18 August 2006 (UTC)). A notable example of this is the tramway system of Linz, Austria.
O please, please, even the narrowest tram is wider than the 1435 mm or 56.5" of standard gauge. The only consideration here would be lesser construction costs. Peter Horn 15:31, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
Quite a number of statements on this article regarding the reasons for narrow gauge being chosen over standard gauge are false. Just to relieve any confusion, I'd like to take the time to note the real reasons here.
The first myth is that narrow gauge is in most cases lightly laid, and that this is due to cost saving reasons. This is not the case; generally only temporary systems, hand worked systems, and systems using only very light locomotives have lightly laid track. The latter is the only case where cost is maybe an issue, but usually any money saved is only incidental.
The second myth is that narrow gauge is only chosen as an alternative to standard or broad gauge for just one single reason (cost OR size). While in a handful of cases this may be true, the reality is that there are multiple reasons which stack up to outweigh the benefits of any other gauge. These reasons are cost of construction (sleepers and rails are not as heavy, trackbeds are not so large, gradients can be steeper and curves can be tighter), cost of equipment (smaller locomotives and rolling stock mean lower initial investment and lower running costs), flexibility (extensions and pointwork can be added easily and be done by existing employees without the need for contractors or lengthy downtime) and resulting economic working compared to standard gauge branch line operation carrying the same quantity of freight.
The third myth is that narrow gauge suffers because it cannot interchange equipment with standard gauge or broad gauge networks in countries where standard or broad gauge is the norm. This is simply not the case, and it is certainly not "the most fundamental problem" as the article describes. Far from it, transfer points where freight or passengers transfer from narrow to standard gauge trains have been proven to incur only negligable costs (if any) that still do not outweigh the cost of standard gauge running. Even in the event of a situation where a standard gauge line would be more cost effective, such a line would've been chosen and built instead. Very few lines were actually built to a narrow gauge for cost saving reasons only, and such poorly thought out affairs did not last very long, nor did their accompanying industries. The ability to exchange equipment is only a convenience, rather than a necessity - having freight transferred multiple times before it reaches it's destination slows down the transport time, and eventually becomes too expensive and cumbersome.
The first mistake is to compare narrow gauge to standard gauge. Narrow gauge is not there to do the job of standard gauge, narrow gauge is there because the job is too small to merit the use of standard gauge, but still large enough to merit some form of rail borne transport. It's what goes between road transport and standard gauge railways. Generally operating a standard gauge line to do the job of a narrow gauge line is too fuel intensive for the small amounts of freight being transported. Lorries also present a similar problem, having only limited capacity and therefore having to make several trips is too fuel intensive.
While there are many contradictions, incorrect statements, and other problems with this article, I hope that I've cleared up some of the most glaring issues for future editors/contributors. -- Badharlick 04:24, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
Just a couple of engineering opinions about this issue: 1st - (with respect to the narrow-gauge advantage in mountainous terrain} the advantage of greater allowable curvature is valid (assuming shorter rolling stock) but narrow gauge has no advantage with respect to steeper grades. Steeper grades just come with mountainous country. Greater frictional forces for multiple smaller cars carrying the same tonnage actually puts the narrow gauge at a disadvantage with respect to grades. In theory, greater curvature would reduce grades with fewer and smaller bridges and minimized earthwork construction.
2nd - The issue of freight transfer costs should be considered in comparison to interest payments on the increased capital costs of standard gauge bridges, rails, sleepers, ballast, and earthwork cut and fill. Internal combustion earthmoving machinery dramatically reduced construction costs; and the freight transfer issue is too often discussed for a facility after the original construction cost differences have been minimized by inflation and/or accepted as investor losses through bankruptcy, receivership, reorganization, or nationalization. Thewellman ( talk) 19:12, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
The article says, "Non-industrial narrow gauge mountain railways are or were common in the Rocky Mountains of Canada..." No they weren't. There were no narrow gauge railways built in the Canadian Rockies. There were narrow gauge railways built in the Columbia Mountains to the west, and the Foothills to the east, and the American Rockies to the south, but I don't know of any built in the Canadian Rocky Mountains proper. Railroading in the Canadian Rockies was a serious engineering exercise not suitable for undercapitalized companies, and all the companies who did build railways there (Canadian Pacific, Canadian Northern, Grand Trunk Pacific, and Pacific Great Eastern) built standard gauge. RockyMtnGuy 02:30, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
This article is getting very large. Authors should consider daughter articles for detailed infomation on various systems and countries. -- Michael Johnson 00:02, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
Do the mules realy run on narrow gauge track, if so, which gauge? Peter Horn 01:01, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
Variable gauge axles are simply not an option as there is simply not enough space (room) for the mechanisms between the backs of the wheels when they are in the narrow gauge position. Peter Horn 01:45, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
Narrow gauge railways with increase maximum axle load which must increase the number of sleepers per kilometer. 121.102.47.39 ( talk) 10:03, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
Oh please. Any gauge can support any radius curve as small or short as 40 ft or 12.2 m as is particularjy the case of tramway track. The rolling stock on any gauge is adapted to or designed for the minimum radius of curvature to be negotiated. Peter Horn 19:26, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
"Narrow gauge allows tighter turning in restricted city streets." Are you kidding? The one time 1,435 mm (4 ft 8+1⁄2 in) trams of Montreal and the present day 58.875Toronto trams turn just as nicely in "restricted city streets". The rolling stock on any gauge is adapted to or designed for the minimum radius of curvature to be negotiated. Peter Horn 01:37, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
I have started a paragraph for narrow-guage railways in Romania and I can add to it as more lines are renovated and up-and-running. However, I am not a technical expert or an expert on railway history in Romania - can others help provide this information?
Also, I think the Hungary paragraph in this article should then be changed. It currently reads: "Following the Treaty of Trianon some railways were cut by the new border, many remained on the territory of Romania, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia.... Freight haulage on the few remaining lines continued to decline until 1990 from when a patchwork of railways was gradually taken over by associations and forest managements for tourist purposes." Text concerning lines - like the Valea Vasar Mocanita - which are situated in a place that is no longer part of Hungary (the Treaty of Trianon was in 1920) should be moved to a paragraph for the country which now applies. I propose removing from the Hungary paragraph "Freight haulage on the few remaining lines continued to decline until 1990 from when a patchwork of railways was gradually taken over by associations and forest managements for tourist purposes", and putting into the Romania paragraph "From 1990 some narrow guage lines were taken over by associations and forest managements for tourist purposes"; paragraphs for other countries can also adapt the same text as appropriate. (Unfortunately, I don't know enough about the history of railways in Romania to be willing to transfer the deleted sentence verbatim). Any objections? Frankieparley 13:52, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
I've removed the following paragraph from this section:
I'm not sure this is true - standard gauge railways have also proved vulnerable to competition from trucks. Trucking can also suffer from transshipment issues, of course. Most importantly, without any sort of citation this is really just original research which should be avoided.
Unfortunately, the entire section suffers from a lack of citations. It would be really useful if we could all help find relevant sources and add them to this section to avoid it appearing to be personal opinions. Gwernol 18:03, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
Hi, I have recently changed the layout of the individual country sections so that the thumbnail images appear below the text, like this:
Portugal had hundreds of km of 1 gauge railways, including: Linha do Porto à Póvoa e Famalicão - Closed. Some of the old trackbed is now used by the Oporto's Metropolitan railcars. Linha de Guimarães - Closed between Guimarães and Fafe, converted into a bike way. The rest is now broad gauge. Linha do Tâmega. Linha do Corgo. Linha do Tua. Linha do Sabor. Linhas do Vale do Vouga. Linha do Dão.
At least one passenger service known as the Linha do Tâmega is still in operation. It runs between Livração and Amarante in the District of Porto and runs near the River Tâmega.
I prefer this layout, as it allows the text to flow naturally regardless of the number of images present. What do other editors think? Is there a better layout? Thanks, Gwernol 15:57, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
Can someone please undo the recent move from "Narrow gauge railway" to "Narrow gauge rail transport". The original title was entirely apposite, a redirect from "narrow gauge railroad" covering the common English alternative. The current title is not in common usage and appears nowhere in the article, however "narrow gauge railway" occurs 18 times and "narrow gauge railroad" 11 times. Let's not invent new terms which are rarely if every used. Bermicourt ( talk) 17:57, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
Narrow gauge rail transport#Advantages of narrow gauge I dispute the parts about radii. Peter Horn 22:03, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
Editors should be clear that the disadvantage relates specificity to a narrower gauge, not to other factors like loading gauges. -- Michael Johnson ( talk) 01:59, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
If "Narrow Gauge" were to refer to railways 3ft 6in track gauge and below, then what would one do with the poor old Padarn Railway in North Wales, that used a gauge of 4ft 0in? It certainly isn't Stephenson's Gauge! 80.229.210.97 ( talk) 14:55, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
Narrow gauge really refers to anything smaller than standard gauge - practically speaking, it's anything less than 4 feet 8 inches (1,422 mm). The costs of constructing 4 ft gauge wouldn't be significantly different than standard gauge so, although it meets the technical definition of narrow gauge, it's a rather pointless narrow gauge. The point of using gauges of 3 feet 6 inches (1,067 mm) and narrower was that there were some theoretical advantages in construction costs. RockyMtnGuy ( talk) 20:47, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
There are many narrow gauge street tramways, particularly in Europe where 1,000 mm (3 ft 3+3⁄8 in) gauge tramways are common. Narrow gauge allows tighter turning than 1435 gauge or 1495 gauge in restricted city streets dubious – discuss. The tighter turning circle make balloon loops at the end of routes easier, which in turn allows the use of unidirectional trams with a driver's cab at one end only, and doors on one side, allowing more space for passengers dubious – discuss. Nonsense! The Toronto trams are capable to turn on a 36-foot (10.97 m) radius. So this paragraph should be deleted alltogether as nonsense. Peter Horn User talk 00:02, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
Re: Narrow gauge railway#Taiwan. Give me a break, exchanging narrow gauge bogies for standard gauge ones should not be prohibitively expensive. When I worked for the Montreal Locomotive Works, MLW built locomotives for Peru and supplied both standard gauge and 36 Bogies for them. Similarly when MLW built locos for Tunisia these were supplied with both standard gauge and metre gauge bogies, not mounted at the same time of course. Peter Horn User talk 21:15, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
Why does the tile of this article omit the hyphen? Michael Hardy ( talk) 17:14, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
In what order should the following narrow gauge pioneers be put in? And are there any other pioneer characters? Was the choice of the Norwegian narrow gauge influenced by the gauge successfully chosen by Queensland, or visa versa?
Tabletop ( talk) 11:28, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
There are many Gauges with roundabout 3 ft (English, Swedish, Castilian, etc.), e.g.
So we really should have a section for "three foot gauge railways". axpde Hello! 20:47, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
{{
see also|
List of rail gauges}}
to the top of the "Gauges used" section, and will raise the other matter at
Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Trains.
Tim PF (
talk)
08:52, 3 May 2011 (UTC)There is a chapter "successful narrow gauge". According to actual version of this article, "successful" seams to mean fast and heavy. According to the number of passengers (in relation to the population), Japan and Switzerland have the most successful rail systems in the world, and both countries have large narrow gauge networks. I think, the success of narrow gauge railways is to make a larger network in less populated regions affordable. So I think this chapter should rather get a new title "narrow gauge main line" and may be the fact with Switzerland and Japan should be mentioned. Helmigo ( talk) 00:19, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
why is the text centred in the page, with left edge jagged? It looks strange, and not like other wiki pages. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.68.6.12 ( talk) 21:02, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
Unlike Australia, Brazil and South Africa, New Zealand does NOT AFAIK operate 200 wagon trains, and should not therefore be included as a Successful narrow gauge railways.
Tabletop ( talk) 13:54, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
"There are hundreds of kilometeres of 600 mm (1 ft 11 5⁄8 in), 750 mm (2 ft 5 1⁄2 in), 785 mm (2 ft 6 9⁄10 in), and 1,000 mm (3 ft 3 3⁄8 in) narrow gauge lines in Poland." propaganda BS; There where - is better time/tense; 99% of lines is scraped or is destroyed and not available to use [include the bigest web of narrow lines in Europe in Kujawy / east Greatpoland, what is the biggest lost for any narrow railway fan!]. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.20.149.11 ( talk) 00:41, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
It can not be said, that interchange problems are generally a disadvantage of narrow gauge. If we, for example, talk about South African Gautrain, interchange is just in the opposite, an argument against standard gauge and for narrow gauge!-- Helmigo ( talk) 16:33, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
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