Does a wider gauge give a smoother ride?

[Harlesden]

Forgive my naivety but I only discovered tonight (10 minutes ago) that Iarnród Éireann operates on 5'3" gauge. Can anyone who has travelled widely (on the Irish gauge and Standard guage) describe the difference ride quality if there is any. Interesting to note that the Class 22000 are Japanese

 

[Class172]

I can only guess it is due to the effective shape (cross-sectional) of a train. Think of a carboard box (cereal box for example): if you lay the box with the largest side down, it is very hard to tip over, since the centre of mass is a long is low down. Conversley, lay the cereal box on its side; it is easy to tip over and the CoM is higher up. Broad guage = wider base. I'm sure someone can think of a better analogy but if you can understand it, then I'm happy!

 

[JGR]

I would rather doubt that it would make much noticeable difference at all, assuming the rails, wheels and suspension were otherwise the same.

Conditions where the increased gauge would help prevent tipping/instability are already *way* outside the passenger comfort zone.

 

[edwin_m]

Lateral irregularities in the track would cause a coach to sway, and one of the jobs of the suspension is to damp this out. In theory, other things being equal, this would be slightly easier on a wider track gauge where the dampers could be more widely spaced.

However I agree with JGR that other things aren't going to be equal. The nearest to equal would be the British and Irish Mk3s which at least have the same body and bogies, but even then a comparison make no allowance for differences in track quality which is probably lower in Ireland simply because the maximum speeds are also lower. There may even be detail differences in the suspensions of the two types.

 

[sheff1]

Having travelled widely in Portugal (5'5"), my answer is 'No'.

 

[DownSouth]

Being in Australia where I have travelled on 1067mm Cape Gauge, 1435mm Standard Gauge and 1600mm Victorian/Irish Gauge - no, there are far more variables involved than the track gauge.

In my experience there are:

• some great 1067mm tracks on recently built tracks in Western Australia served by quality Australian-built modern B-Series EMUs which are some of the smoothest journeys I've ever ridden.
• some truly awful 1067mm tracks in WA and Queensland which have people running the risk of seasickneess.
• some truly abominable 1600mm tracks in Victoria, even running the excellent Australian-built VLocity intercity DMUs can't polish the turd.
• some great newly-built 1600mm tracks in South Australia which are currently let down by the clapped-out DMUs running on them, but should be fine when the new world-leading Australian-built EMUs (the next evolution from the Perth B-Series) enter service.
• a mix of everything on the standard gauge system which is mostly quite good if you're riding it in the venerable old Budd-designed coaches. If you're in a newer DMU or EMU it's not fun.

--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Broad guage = wider base. I'm sure someone can think of a better analogy but if you can understand it, then I'm happy!

The 165mm difference between Standard Gauge and Victorian Gauge (spread out your hand - that's wider than the difference) is not significant enough to overcome all the other factors involved with ride quality.

That applies on straight track only, on tight corners it goes the other way with a narrower track able to turn tighter corners while maintaining a good ride than a wider gauge can.


If you go towards a more extreme example in either direction you start to get more problems - with a sub-metre gauge the stability of the rolling stock would start to suffer and top speed would be lower.

Going wider you start to get issues with the track warping due to ground movement. This was the reason that the original Central Australia Railway route from Port Augusta to Alice Springs (not the current Adelaide-Darwin Railway) was built to the 1067mm gauge despite that introducing a number of annoying break-of-gauge stations, top speed was irrelevant while coping with the ground conditions was a must.

 

[rf_ioliver]

Forgive my naivety but I only discovered tonight (10 minutes ago) that Iarnród Éireann operates on 5'3" gauge. Can anyone who has travelled widely (on the Irish gauge and Standard guage) describe the difference ride quality if there is any. Interesting to note that the Class 22000 are Japanese

Tends to depend upon the track quality and how good the suspension on the trains area. Here in sunny Finland we've 1524mm gauge with an enormous loading gauge on top. Generally the ride is excellent, however in some places, even on the main Helsinki-Turku line it can be a bit "lumpy" in places:

http://vaunut.org/kuva/50099?liikp1=2522

t.

Ian

 

[jopsuk]

Brunel certainly belived it gave a smoother ride, and hence would allow for higher speeds.
But as others say, quality of the track construction and maintainence is probably far, far more important.

 

[gordonthemoron]

I thought that new Irish trains were chinese or korean rather than japanese?

 

[jopsuk]

Complicated- "Supplied" by Mitsui (Japan), built by Hyundai Rotem (South Korea) with bogies from Tokyu Car Corporation (Japan).

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Metre gauge lines in Switzerland are very smooth and stable (eg RhB).

 

[O L Leigh]

Brunel certainly belived it gave a smoother ride, and hence would allow for higher speeds.

Yes, but Brunel envisaged that the rolling stock would be of standard width with huge wheels outside of the coach bodies, not dissimilar to a stagecoach. In this instance it is the diameter of the wheels that gives a smoother ride on any given length of track, as anyone who has ridden both motorbikes and scooters will confirm.

The problem was that GWR undid Brunel's vision by taking full advantage of the wider loading gauge and used wide-bodied vehicles instead.

O L Leigh

 

[bangor-toad]

Hi there,
Having rode on Irish, Northern Ireland and English railways a fair bit I'd say that there is no difference in ride due to the 5'3 vs 4'8.5 gauge difference. Both systems have parts that are excellent / good / bad / "we've derailed haven't we?" and the ride seems to be merely a function of how well the track is maintained.

Out of interest I understand that the 5'3 gauge was used in Northern Ireland as it was the average of the various different tracks gauges initially proposed.

Cheers,
Jason

 

[Domeyhead]

Had Brunel's broad gauge prevailed the benefits for freight haulage down the years would have been immense, though I suspect the national network would never have grown to the extent it did. Swings, roundabouts......

 

[TheEdge]

I've heard various claims that had Brunel "won" the gauge war we would now be seeing much faster trains. Don't know if there is any truth to that one.

 

[gordonthemoron]

I thought Brunel's trains couldn't go round corners?

 

[edwin_m]

I've heard various claims that had Brunel "won" the gauge war we would now be seeing much faster trains. Don't know if there is any truth to that one.

Unlikely, since speeds now attainable on 1435mm gauge high speed lines are limited mainly by aerodynamics.

 

[DownSouth]

I thought Brunel's trains couldn't go round corners?

Basically yes. Every track gauge is a compromise somewhere along the line, and it was simply that making narrower gauge rolling stock stable turned out to be easier than making wider gauge trains go around corners efficiently and smoothly.

If you were to rebuild the British railways from scratch using the knowledge gained up to now, you would ideally use 1067mm Cape Gauge for the added manoeuvrability with just a self-contained high speed intercity system on 1435mm Standard Gauge as in Japan.

These days there aren't any problems with either speed, loading gauge or axle loads with using Cape Gauge for classic lines. In Queensland the Electric Tilt Train (from which Hitachi have developed the IEP) has hit 210 km/h, and heavy coal trains of up to 120 hoppers (of larger than UK loading gauge) operate on some of the very same lines every day.

 

[LexyBoy]

Well the passenger trains on the Breitspurbahnen were supposed to have swimming pools on board so I imagine the Nazi engineers were anticipating a smooth ride

 

[TheEdge]

Well the passenger trains on the Breitspurbahnen were supposed to have swimming pools on board so I imagine the Nazi engineers were anticipating a smooth ride

Without trying to say "Go Hitler, what an awesome idea" that, after some quick Googling, looks like it would have been a fairly impressive thing!

 

[Trog]

Can you imagine being in the pool during an emergency stop with all the water plastered up the front end of the carriage. Then as the train stops being slammed into the floor and rear wall as it all flows back.

 

[PeterY]

I can't tell the difference between 5'3" guage of NI railways and standard guage in ride quality. I think Max speed in N.I. is 90mph but I may be wrong.

The Caf units in N.I. look tall and sleek and inside the passenger compartment, floor to ceiling seem more spacious.

 

[DownSouth]

The Caf units in N.I. look tall and sleek and inside the passenger compartment, floor to ceiling seem more spacious.

That would be more down to the good design of the rolling stock than the track gauge, if I remember correctly there is next to no difference between the typical British and Irish loading gauges.

Loading gauge is not completely dependent on the track gauge. There are trains running on 1067mm track in South Australia, Western Australia and Queensland which would cause unexpected modifications to station platforms and bridges if they were put on 1435mm bogies and driven on UK track - or even some 1600mm suburban lines in other parts of Australia.

(and yes, there are a number of locomotive classes that have run on all three mainline track gauges in Australia!)

 

[jopsuk]

From what I can gather from technical stats, most Japanese 1067mm stock is wider, longer and higher than UK stock. I don't think Iberian (Spanish and Portuguese) stock is any wider than other European stock. Indeed, Spain has some of the most advanced (and well used) automatically gauge changing stock. I can't access Youtube right now, but the speed that passenger trains can through a track gauge changer is quite amazing!