Rail gauge in India

India currently has significant quantities of four different incompatible rail gauges. The railways consist of around 42,000 km of RailGauge|1676 broad gauge (BG) railway (a.k.a. Indian gauge), 17,000 km of metre gauge and an assortment of narrow gauge lines.Indian Railways Fan Club, [http://www.irfca.org/faq/faq-gauge.html Railway Gauges in India] .]

Project Unigauge seeks to standardise the rail gauges towards the Indian gauge.

Overview

Broad gauge—1,676 mm (5 ft 6 in)—is the most widely used gauge in India with convert|89771|km|mi|abbr=on of track. In some regions with less traffic, the metre gauge—1,000 mm (3 ft 3.7 in)—is common, although the Unigauge project is in progress to convert all tracks to broad gauge. Narrow gauge is present on a few routes, lying in hilly terrains and in some erstwhile private railways (on cost considerations), which are usually difficult to convert to broad gauge. Narrow gauge covers a total of convert|3350|km|mi|abbr=on.cite book |title=India Yearbook 2007 |publisher=Publications Division, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting,Govt. Of India |isbn=81-230-1423-6 |pages=p 817 ] The Nilgiri Mountain Railway and the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway are two notable hill lines that use narrow gauge. [Cite web
title = Toy Trains Of India
url=http://www.triptoindia.com/toy-trains-of-india-royal-train-tours-of-india-calling-tours-trip-to-india.html
accessdate = 2007-05-12
work = Our Trips - Royal Train Tours
publisher=India Calling Tours (P) Limited]

History

Broad Gauge

Broad gauge was chosen for India in the 1850s by the then Governor-General of India rather than the standard gauge, with two main reasons given:
* greater stability during periods of high wind and unpredictable weather.
* greater space between the wheels for bigger inside cylinders, although this ceased to be a problem when outside cylinders were introduced.The inability to source standard equipment wasn't seen to be a problem, or was overlooked. The extra cost of longer sleepers wasn't considered to be a problem, though later on the cost saving of shorter sleepers with metre gauge was considered to be an advantage.

Standard Gauge

Very small amounts of standard gauge (1435 mm) have existed in India for one-off projects and short line lengths. The only surviving example of which is the Kolkata (Calcutta) Tram system

Metre Gauge

In the 1880s, when the basic broad gauge system was looking reasonably complete, another Governor-General considered the introduction of infill metre gauge lines as this appeared to be achievable at reduced cost.

Narrow Gauge

Even narrower gauge lines were constructed on the basis of saving more money and simplifying engineering. The mentality was that if money could be saved building metre gauge rather than broad gauge, then presumably more money could be saved by building in a narrow gauge.

Absurdity

The design process during construction was taken to its extreme, with the gauge being carefully chosen to optimise costs for the traffic offering. The result being that each line might be a different gauge, even if it would have been more useful to have a through service.

References