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Let's not forget that BART also made bad engineering choices, like non-standard tracks and trains that probably cost a lot of taxpayer money...
by thatfrenchguy 11y ago
Let's not forget that BART also made bad engineering choices, like non-standard tracks and trains that probably cost a lot of taxpayer money...
- samtho 11y agoBART is the only transit system in North America that uses the Indian gauge. The wider gauge also contributes to the noise it generates and the wear on the track around turns.
- AnimalMuppet 11y agoWhy should the wider gauge do either? Noise: It's just steel wheels rolling on steel rails. Why should the distance between the rails change the amount of noise it generates? Wear on the track: Presuming that the turns aren't too tight a radius (which may be larger for the larger gauge), and the superelevation is correct (which probably has to be larger for the larger gauge), why should wider track mean greater wear on curves?
- AnimalMuppet 11y agoThat wasn't an engineering choice, that was a political choice. It went something like this (my memory is a bit vague, some details may be wrong): Southern Pacific Railway had a line up the San Francisco peninsula, and didn't want BART to use it. They were politically somewhat powerful, and opposed BART. BART went with a different track gauge so that their trains could never run on Southern Pacific's tracks, and Southern Pacific withdrew their opposition.