We're going to have to re-lay all the routes for mag-lev anyway so what the hell?
The point everybody is missing is there were no lines to re-lay then it would be a case of the routes being layed as broad gauge from the word go.
Brunel's 7ft standard gauge
- Thread starter Ris4history
- Start date
We're going to have to re-lay all the routes for mag-lev anyway so what the hell?
The point everybody is missing is there were no lines to re-lay then it would be a case of the routes being layed as broad gauge from the word go.
The big problem with broad gauge also comes with rights of way. Of course, in the 1800s people were much more amenable to mass demolitions for the railways... Still, considering the massive scale of some of the projects OTL, I wonder if in TTL some things would simply be deemed unfeasible.
More on Brunel's 7 ft gauge
I recently read that the "death knell" for the broad gauge involved the GWR
losing control over the Bristol to Birmingham Railway. I think the Midland acquired and narrowed the gauge or prevented it from being broadened.
It would seem to me that if the GWR could have exported its broad gauge to other lines then this would have provided more feeder lines to the GWR
and eliminated some "break in the gauge" bottlenecks. More traffic equals
more profit which equals more investment in other broad gauge lines. Please discuss.
I recently read that the "death knell" for the broad gauge involved the GWR
losing control over the Bristol to Birmingham Railway. I think the Midland acquired and narrowed the gauge or prevented it from being broadened.
It would seem to me that if the GWR could have exported its broad gauge to other lines then this would have provided more feeder lines to the GWR
and eliminated some "break in the gauge" bottlenecks. More traffic equals
more profit which equals more investment in other broad gauge lines. Please discuss.
Imajin said:
At some point, though, the envelope will push back (so to speak). The railways were heavily opposed by the landed gentry and agricultural interests, postponing the building of the early lines (say, for example, the London&Birmingham) because of land issues and whatnot. If broad gauge was used as a norm from the word go (since 1829-31), the greater land requirements vis-a-vis OTL would brobably stiffen this opposition.
The costs would rise, construction costs as well as the price to pay off the local elites. The railway companies would have to gather a lot more capital from a market that was OTL critical towards the great initial costs of the Liverpool and Manchester line. There is some point where the soaring cost of different lines would prove a political as well as economic obstacle to the companies planning them, giving ample food for various critical pamphleteers etc.
As both opposition and the available capital would be proportionally greater and smaller, respectively, I would imagine ITTL railway construction would happen in a slower fashion. Lets say a lag of 5 to 15 years in comparison to OTL. The first railway mania would be postponed, but there would also be eventually a (bigger?) market crash in the 50s-60s.
Using broad gauge from the start will also wildly change the urban geography in various cities, especially London. Imajin pointed out mass demolitions. Either these would happen in a seriously bigger scale or than there would be less railway stations in the metropolitan area, maybe several lines terminating in a few joint hubs. This all has the making of a lot of butterflies, about the dislocation of people, the structure of the city, railway company co-operation (considering eventual amalgamation) etc.
I could also see a lag in railway building giving a longer lease of life to the steam carriage, at least in the London area. This also brings some implications worth considering.
The urban geography in the UK grew up around the railways. Therefore no mass demolitions or dislocation of people. The cities were built around the railways.
What type of steam carriage? Road or rail?
the_lyniezian
Banned
Looks like that would need a seven-metre gauge, let alone a 7ft one...
Of course, there'd be no more of this 'tying the damsel-in-distress between the tracks' in films
Erm... isn't that a good thing?
(Unless you're particularly into that sort of thing... )Such as? Are you envisaging steam-powered road transport taking off big time? Or just indulging in a few steampunk fantasies?
I thought at first you meant Trevithick's machine, which is the first thing that turned up on my Wikipedia search, although it seems there was quite a number of other vehicles that operated off steam that ran on roads.
Get rid, it seems, of the Turnpike Acts a lot sooner, the Locomotive Act of 1861 and the Locomotives Act of '65 ("Red Flag Act") and you might make them even more successful.
That might be true to most towns, especially smaller, but in the 1830s and 40s bringing the various lines to central London caused demolitions and clearing of existing structures for both the tracks (consider, for example, viaducts) and the stations. Also, some neighbourhoods were made derelict, at least over time, there as well as in other towns due to the closeness of the lines. ATL, the situation would be similar, but probably the exact locations could be different even though there are "natural" places to lay track (through poor neighbourhoods) and place stations. Also, more space would be needed.
Road. The metropolitan area had a fair number of steam carriage promotors around 1825-1835, outnumbering railway experimenters with a good margin at first. Gurney and others, especially Hancock would have more time to experiment and arguably could attract some more capital if people are more sceptical towards the railway. If it takes 5 years more to get the railway an established phenomenon (and 10 more to reach London), maybe the city could have some fairly established steam carriage lines for local transport in place around 1845-50. That would take a lot of luck and bungling railway promotors, though.
the lyniezian said:Such as? Are you envisaging steam-powered road transport taking off big time? Or just indulging in a few steampunk fantasies?
Probably not big time, the tech was just not there. When railways grow, they would outpace the steam carriage soon enough. But maybe by giving the various steam carriage schemers some years breathing room, we could see mechanical road transport slowly taking up feeder routes from horse-drawn vehicles (proposed in the Mechanics Magazine already in 1833), avoiding the virtual extinction of steam road transport around 1840 and hastening the advent of established car traffic some decades at least.
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I have a book with maps of London from 1822, when there were no railways, to 1903 and it shows quite clearly that there were no significant demolitions and the urban development was caused by the railways and took place around them. The Village London Atlas by Alderman Press ISBN 0-946619-26-3
Highways take up way more land than the permanent way, just look at any modern road running parallel to a railway. Engineering a road to carry the weight that railways can carry has still not been done properly except by Nazi Germany and that was prohibitively expensive.
Right, "not significant". That is a question of opinion, which tends to be different for the historian perusing maps and for the ordinary Londoner losing their home for a railway line or their churchyard for a station. Maps are tidy affairs: I am sure maps of Lower Manhattan from 2000 and 2015 will not necessarily show any "significant demolitions" to a future historian: the facts (and feelings) on the ground might look different to a contemporary observer. I have seen some prints of the various construction yards in London at that time, and they do at least give an overbearing impression of change in contemporary view.
Most stations were built in peripheral locations, and this made it necessary to tear down only a few buildings. Many others (like London Bridge), however, were planned in an area with many existing buildings and necessitated bigger demolitions. I would not call these changes insignificant. But certainly you are right if you compare the damage to existing buildings to what happened in the cities and towns on the Continent later.
For the recent topic, we could consider what would have been the case if the lines and stations would have needed more space for the broad gauge lines and stations, and if, like I suggested, the lines would have been brought to London later. In that case the disrupting influence to local geography would have been greater than OTL. I was mainly considering this in the light of the various butterflies it would bring about, not for a whole scale remaking of London-Town.
That is true. That is why I am not suggesting steam carriages would win in the short or even medium term. Those steam carriages operational in 1845 would be still most likely used in the role of an omnibus or short stage (or for short-haul goods transport) rather than for longer coach routes, which would be supplanted by railways soon enough. Abortive attempts to compete with the railway on longer routes would happen (as did in OTL, like the London and Birmingham Steam Carriage Company), but they would be doomed to failure. But maybe there would have been some hope for the steam carriage in an auxiliary role to the railway, on short distances.
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Just how Brunellian would this alt-railway system be, anyway? Never mind the problems of the permanent way, if it uses Brunel's locomotives there won't be any trains on it anyway...
Brunel's locomotives were discarded early on and the designs of Armstrong, Gooch and Dean used. Gooches Iron Duke class held the world record for steam locomotives when they were in service. Dean went on to design state of the art standard gauge locomotives for the GWR into the twentieth century.
AFAIK, due to superiority of British built engines, most early USA railways imported British engines. If broad guage is more available early on, maybe they'd go with it.
I might have to check that out.
The only early railway i'm familiar with (laid in 1833, IIRC) was originally a turnpike with a 40' right-of-way. When it applied to change to a railroad, the right-of-way for that was 20'. If other early railways were similar to this, +/- 2'6" of track won't make the land required any larger.
I was mildly confused by the comments earlier about more use of land, but I think what they really meant was not so much the width of the track, per se, but the extra land required for curves, cuts, etc. because the 7' gauge is rather less ... nimble.
OMG!!! Where did THIS monster come from? I'm fascinated and repelled at the same time. In fact, I'd like to see & hear more about it and the story it comes from . . .
Bobindelaware
I think 5'6" is the way to go. Why would countries adopt this width if standard was established? Because it is better. Tunnels and bridges that allow for double decker, extra wide, carriages would be good too. Decent width tank transport. Mass passenger transport. Bulky, light, freight loads. India is currently changing all it's gauges of track to Uni-gauge (5'6") to match Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Chile and Argentina. Canada used to have 5'6" railways, that's where this standard started.
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Y'know, that's a good point... this pic keeps coming up, but have no idea where it's from either.