If Brunel had his way....

[TOMMO79]

I just wondered what the railways would be like nowadays and in the past if broad guage had been adopted. I think the most obvious thing would be higher speeds because steam loco's would have been built with much larger boilers and cylinders and have a lower centre of gravity when cornering. Wider stock would give more room for comfort and facilities on board or enable more freight to be carried.

Here's a few things to think about...

Would there be more/less routes be open at present?
Would the streamliners still have been built in the 30's?
Would we have made the switch to deisel/electric earlier or be running highly evolved modern steam loco's?
What kind of speeds would be acheived on wider tracks?
How different would our favorite loco's be?

Just thought this might make an intresting topic, just hope it doesn't cause any arguments

[ca55ie]

And theres the added advantage of less de-railing risk, but it if did de-rail, it would be more likely to stay upright. The disadvantage is that the locos and stock are heavier so you'd have to strengthen up bridges and tracks, and another disadvantage is yards would have to be bigger to accomodate broad gauge trains - as a matter of fact, youd have to mae everything bigger.

Cheers,

Sam

[saddletank]

'Making everything bigger' isn't the case at all. Look at GW stations today - the older ones that were converted from broad to narrow (standard) gauge. The platforms are the same distance apart but the way between tracks is wider. Why? Because there is almost no overhang outside the rails on broad gauge stock - the entire vehicle body lies between the frames, this is what made BG stock such stable vehicles. Look at a 4ft 8.5inch train and see how much beyond the rails it hangs? So a yard made up of broad gauge tracks would in fact take up almost no more room than a standard gauge yard. And obviously very little more in height and no more in length.

Equally clearly broad gauge was doomed to die and was one of Brunels more obvious mistakes of judgement since the standard gauge dervied from colliery chauldron wagons of the Tyneside coal fileds and these predated the steam railway by many years. The gauge war was effectively lost before it had begun. But putting real history aside (in that a broad gauge system could never in reality have been viable) then a fantasy broad gauge universe using modern trains would be interesting.

I suspect the 'real' history of such a railway system would not be so duifferent from that which we have now however. The internal combustion engine that ate into freight traffic post-WW1 would still be a dominant player, the takeover by diesel and electric was a political move rather than one driven by speed, puntuality or coal reserves reasons. The 'dirty old steam trains' argument carries weight however far apart the rails are.

With the almost certain exception of a better High Speed Rail Link out of the 3 major axes from London and possibly some bigger freight terminals for Broad Rail I do not think the system would look that much different today.

We would also probably never have had such a fascinating and charming network of rural lines and branches because broad gauge construction is that much more expensive initially and many of the small concerns who built the original lines had trouble stumping up the cash for a standard gauge line, let alone extra for the additinal engineering a broad gauge cutting or embankment or tunnel bore cost.

What we might have is a better (more comfortable) series of passenger trains based on broader coachwork (think 747 jet body versus 707).

[davidaward]

Personally I think that retention of Broad Guage would have given us a better network.

1 Improved Stability of trains on a wider guage giving higher speeds (the GWR Locos of the 1850-70s were the fastest around)

2 Less cahnce of derailment and more chance of staying upright if derailed.

Who knows what else may have happened...........

I love speculation like this...................

[jjules]

Anyone know a link to where I can read up on broad gauge? I was under the impression that the rail network was the same all over. Evidentally not...

Just a more random thought, thanks for bringing this up TOMMO79. It just shows and proves to me that there are bigger gaps in my knowledge than I thought. At least I've learnt something today!

[mattvince]

Broad gauge is basically everything ex-GWR, excluding the Badminton line (Swinedon-Brissle Park'y) and the GC-GN Joint line (Banbury-Old Oak via Princes Risborough), and the Westbury and Frome avoiding lines (plus many more I've missed). I say ex-GWR, not ex-Western Region, as the WR took over many London Midland and Southern Region lines back in 1948. Search 'Broad Gauge Society' on an engine of your choice...

I think it's very much conjecture as to how BG would have made the railways much better: clearly, for any system to work, it must be standardised - look at the problems on the Franco-Spanish border, Trans-European Network? yeah, right!

Higher speeds were possible with BG locomotives, however, there were also some horrendous accidents - a Bristol & Exeter 4-2-4T loco once rolled over at Long Ashton at speed. Speed is an issue, and it's why the Japanese went for 1435mm for the Shinkansen. Streamliners could have happened, they'd look very weird though. Conjecture has it that had Brunel lived long enough to exploit it, after the failure of atmospheric traction on the South Devon Railway, Brunel would have gone with electrification. It's an interesting paradox, considering that only a dozen or so miles of the GWML is electrified (Paddington-Airport Jn).

However, let none of this detract from Brunel's genius. The Great Western Railway (BG) should be marked out in history as the world's first high speed line. Expensive, but worth every penny.

[jjules]

Cool. I'll look into it a bit more then. Thanks for the information.

[chriscooper]

Overcrowding wouldn't be such an issue as broadgauge trains were wider than standard guage ones, although as mentioned their was a less of an overhand, but even so we could be looking at 2+2 seating in first class, 3+2 in standard and 3+3 on suburban trains. Then again with trains being heavier is is likely they would be shorter, and overall capacity would probably be little different. An interesting thing though is the London Undergrounds Tube system. With wider trains the tunnel diameter would have been larger allowing trains of normal height, and likely their would have been little or no difference between Sub Surface and Tube stock. Of cource the first part of the Circle line, from Paddington to Farringdon was built to dual gauge anyway so the clearances in the tunnels are much greater. When it comes to speed it would proably have little effect these days, as speed restrictions are mainly to do with stopping distances and comfort. The trains might be wider and have a lower centre of gravity, but passengers don't so are just as likely to fall over when taking a corner at high speed whatever gauge the track is. Another factor is the forces on the track which would be increased with heavier broad gauge trains, making it more expensive to maintain track to high speed standards. This also has implications for safety, as the more stress on the track the more likely broken rails are to occur, although as said the lower centre of gravity would mean trains were likely to tip over. Hatfield would probably have been more likely to happen, but the coaches might have remained upright and therfore deaths prevented. Of cource the biggest cause of deaths, collisions, would not have been effected at all. Overall its difficult to tell what the network would be like if Broad Gauge had been adopted universely, but one thing is for certain, had the GW retain broad gauge with the rest of the network using standard gauge, thing would be a lot different.

[GeorgeJacksonChurchward]

Anyone know a link to where I can read up on broad gauge? I was under the impression that the rail network was the same all over. Evidentally not...

http://www.argonet.co.uk/users/lionels/ ... GHist.html

http://www.broadgauge.clara.net/history/bghistory.html

http://www.railscot.co.uk/South_Wales_Railway/body.htm

(Also Broad Gauge)

[nwallace]

Would there be more/less routes be open at present?

Probably about the same

Would the streamliners still have been built in the 30's?

Most likley, they would probably jsut have been a bit faster though

Would we have made the switch to deisel/electric earlier or be running highly evolved modern steam loco's?

Probably about the same

What kind of speeds would be acheived on wider tracks?

Quite a bit faster. Trains would be more stable and cornering speeds higher.

How different would our favorite loco's be?

Well as prevoiusly stated the coachwork would not over hang the bogies so the designs woudl be different.[/quote]

[eugene]

When will someone build a broad gauge line and some stock.? With loco's exceeding 60 mph in 1838 and locos like the hurricane, thunder 0-4-0-6.
(not a missprint) artic's. beautiful. All this and secenary from devon and cornwall.


Eugene

[allypally]

hmm, Wolverhampton to Shrewsbury was GWR, yet im not sure it was broadguage. i know it was because the original GWR footbridge is still at codsall station, now painted a rather nasty shade of red.

[nwallace]

I posted a request for some on the Wanted board a while back. you might want to look there for the response.

I would really like to see some broad gauge stuff...

[saddletank]

I would really like to see some broad gauge stuff...

Yup, but we need the track first. Tim Booth was tossing the idea about in his clever salad bowl of a mind but with MSTS2 only a year away he may well not tackle it now.

[ianmacmillan]

Can someone build a Tardis for research.

Police box should be easy.
Might have some problems with the interior sizes tho