4 ms·

The Days They Changed the Gauge (1966)

59 points by rtpg 12y ago

lmm 12y ago
I thought this was going to be about the GWR in Britain (e.g. http://lionels.orpheusweb.co.uk/RailSteam/GWRBroadG/BGHist.html http://lionels.orpheusweb.co.uk/RailSteam/GWRBroadG/BGHist.h... ). Again the big conversion was made over a single weekend.
- ams6110 12y ago
  See also "H Day" when Sweden switched from left to right drive. Retrofitting/replacing buses with doors on the other side was one of the biggest expenses. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagen_H https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagen_H
  - lepton 12y ago
    Reading this link, it seems that accidents and fatalities were substantially reduced for some time after the switch, due to extra caution being exercised by all drivers. The lesson: Switch the standard every couple of years or so.
ams6110 12y ago
wheel trucks being changed at interchange points as necessary This is still done in trains between China and North Korea, maybe other places, to accomodate for different gauges.
- bewo001 12y ago
  Some trains between Spain and France have a variable gauge. It takes some time to pass the gauge changer, but you can remain seated. [wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_gauge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_gauge)
D-Coder 12y ago
"...crews of various sizes charged with various goats" -- should be "goals". That really threw me for a bit.
- tibbon 12y ago
  I read that and thought, "I didn't know goats were such good work animals!"
notjustanymike 12y ago
Three providers forced to improve speeds because of competition... where have I heard this before?
- angersock 12y ago
  That's not quite an accurate summation--the issue was that handoff between incompatible standards caused delays, and had to be fixed.
sbierwagen 12y ago
Wayback link: https://web.archive.org/web/20140707014414/http://southern.railfan.net/ties/1966/66-8/gauge.html https://web.archive.org/web/20140707014414/http://southern.r...
sudhirj 12y ago
And here I thought it was really cool when I migrated a 1GB database from MySQL to Postgres.
tibbon 12y ago
I thought this was really interesting to read, because it hinted to me that with enough buy-in... that even a physically embedded and implemented standard can change if enough effort is put in. This gives me hope for some digital standards and updates
Animats 12y ago
There are still some seriously annoying gauge incompatibilities in the world. The biggest one is that Russia and the CIS states use a metric gauge, incompatible with both Western Europe and China. The UK and Europe still use crappy link and pin couplers from the 19th century on freight equipment, which is just insane at this late date. Somebody has to climb in between cars to couple them, and car and train sizes are limited because the coupler design is weaker than the US AAR coupler or Russian couplers.
- theoh 12y ago
  In Spain they have variable-gauge trains. The train is driven slowly across the junction; each bogie has various projections that are engaged by control rails to take the weight off the wheels, unlock the wheels, slide them to the new gauge, and lock them in place again. Pretty surprising. Has been in service since 1969.
beernutz 12y ago
Ok, did anyone else notice the reference to "John Gault"? I know it is spelled slightly differently by Ayn Rand, but I found it amusing none the less. Probably just my brain miss-firing. lol From the article: "One farsighted man rose on the Convention's second day to ask that the gauge-size decision be reconsidered. He was John C. Gault, general manager of the Cincinnati, New Orleans & Texas Pacific, and he made some persuasive arguments:"

59 points by rtpg 12y ago

lmm 12y ago

I thought this was going to be about the GWR in Britain (e.g. http://lionels.orpheusweb.co.uk/RailSteam/GWRBroadG/BGHist.html http://lionels.orpheusweb.co.uk/RailSteam/GWRBroadG/BGHist.h... ). Again the big conversion was made over a single weekend.

ams6110 12y ago
See also "H Day" when Sweden switched from left to right drive. Retrofitting/replacing buses with doors on the other side was one of the biggest expenses. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagen_H https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagen_H
- lepton 12y ago
  Reading this link, it seems that accidents and fatalities were substantially reduced for some time after the switch, due to extra caution being exercised by all drivers. The lesson: Switch the standard every couple of years or so.

ams6110 12y ago

wheel trucks being changed at interchange points as necessary This is still done in trains between China and North Korea, maybe other places, to accomodate for different gauges.

bewo001 12y ago
Some trains between Spain and France have a variable gauge. It takes some time to pass the gauge changer, but you can remain seated. [wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_gauge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_gauge)

D-Coder 12y ago

"...crews of various sizes charged with various goats" -- should be "goals". That really threw me for a bit.

tibbon 12y ago
I read that and thought, "I didn't know goats were such good work animals!"

notjustanymike 12y ago

Three providers forced to improve speeds because of competition... where have I heard this before?

angersock 12y ago
That's not quite an accurate summation--the issue was that handoff between incompatible standards caused delays, and had to be fixed.

sbierwagen 12y ago

Wayback link: https://web.archive.org/web/20140707014414/http://southern.railfan.net/ties/1966/66-8/gauge.html https://web.archive.org/web/20140707014414/http://southern.r...

sudhirj 12y ago

And here I thought it was really cool when I migrated a 1GB database from MySQL to Postgres.

tibbon 12y ago

I thought this was really interesting to read, because it hinted to me that with enough buy-in... that even a physically embedded and implemented standard can change if enough effort is put in. This gives me hope for some digital standards and updates

Animats 12y ago

There are still some seriously annoying gauge incompatibilities in the world. The biggest one is that Russia and the CIS states use a metric gauge, incompatible with both Western Europe and China. The UK and Europe still use crappy link and pin couplers from the 19th century on freight equipment, which is just insane at this late date. Somebody has to climb in between cars to couple them, and car and train sizes are limited because the coupler design is weaker than the US AAR coupler or Russian couplers.

theoh 12y ago
In Spain they have variable-gauge trains. The train is driven slowly across the junction; each bogie has various projections that are engaged by control rails to take the weight off the wheels, unlock the wheels, slide them to the new gauge, and lock them in place again. Pretty surprising. Has been in service since 1969.

beernutz 12y ago

Ok, did anyone else notice the reference to "John Gault"? I know it is spelled slightly differently by Ayn Rand, but I found it amusing none the less. Probably just my brain miss-firing. lol From the article: "One farsighted man rose on the Convention's second day to ask that the gauge-size decision be reconsidered. He was John C. Gault, general manager of the Cincinnati, New Orleans & Texas Pacific, and he made some persuasive arguments:"