Marking 125 Years Since the Great Gauge Change 426
Arnold Reinhold writes "This month ends with the 125th anniversary of one of the most remarkable achievements in technology history. Over two days beginning Monday, May 31, 1886, the railroad network in the southern United States was converted from a five-foot gauge to one compatible with the slightly narrower gauge used in the US North, now know as standard gauge. The shift was meticulously planned and executed. It required one side of every track to be moved three inches closer to the other. All wheel sets had to be adjusted as well. Some minor track and rolling stock was sensibly deferred until later, but by Wednesday the South's 11,500 mile rail network was back in business and able to exchange rail cars with the North. Other countries are still struggling with incompatible rail gauges. Australia still has three. Most of Europe runs on standard gauge, but Russia uses essentially the same five foot gauge as the old South and Spain and Portugal use an even broader gauge. India has a multi-year Project Unigauge, aimed at converting its narrow gauge lines to the subcontinent's five foot six inch standard."
Re:Only a few left.... (Score:5, Informative)
At the risk of invoking Godwin (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Only a few left.... (Score:5, Informative)
is there some clear advantage to 240v 50hz AC?
No. Frequency is largely irrelevant. The only common (although probably not so much anymore) residential application I can think of are wall clocks with synchronous motors using the line frequency to keep time. Increasing the voltage would give you more usable power out of your common 15/20A household branch circuit, but that's it. Perhaps you could lower the total number of branch circuits by going to higher voltage, but I don't know how many people would really care that they have 1/3 fewer breakers. Or you have crazy ass things like the UK ring circuit [wikipedia.org].
Take a look at a lot of your electronics and you'll see that they probably accept a "universal input" of 50/60Hz between 100-240VAC. One distinct advantage higher frequency has is allowing smaller size of components like transformers. This is why you'll see things like 115VAC @ 400Hz in aircraft [wonderquest.com].
Re:Slight delay here? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:And still shortsighted (Score:3, Informative)
Re:At the risk of invoking Godwin (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, they did. But it took *time*, and they couldn't do everything. The German railroad units mostly concentrated on advancing maybe half-a-dozen railheads for the entire Eastern Front. By the time winter started in 1941, advancing German forces had completely outrun the slowly reconstructed railways and were in considerable supply difficulties because of that.
Re:Electric grid primitive? Compared to what? (Score:5, Informative)
Maybe it's the piss poor domestic voltage (110V P-E) that necessitates using 2 phase supplies for domestic electric heating, the occasional domestic installations rated for 50 amps (5.5kW) and the un-earthed non-polarised plug / sockets? Or maybe it's just the yearly summer rolling blackouts?
Coming from a country where you can run a 3kW power-tool from a single phase domestic plug / socket combo, then when your done quickly boil water in an electric tea kettle to make a nice hot drink, and at the end of the day wash yourself clean in a 10kW electric shower I can say that the US domestic supply at least looks pretty fucking dismal.
110V domestic voltage? Ungrounded, non-polarized plugs? 50A service? Are you referring to North America? If so, you're woefully misinformed, or ignorant, or both. With minor exceptions domestic service is 220V split phase. While most things in American households run on 110V (one half or the other of the 220V split phase) electric appliances like water heaters, stoves, ovens, and clothes dryers, run on 220V. Current building codes require grounded, polarized outlets, and the only place you find ungrounded, unpolarized outlets are old buildings that haven't been upgraded. Most new construction gets 200A service, and like the outlets, the only place you find mere 50A or 100A service is in older homes that haven't upgraded their service.
And I shower with water, not electricity. ;-)
Re:And still shortsighted (Score:5, Informative)
And of course there isn't much rail traffic currently between europe and russia, the rail stock uses different gauges.
Not exactly. In fact the rolling stock exchanges the wheels at the borders. The whole waggon gets liftet from the bogies, the bogies are rolled away, new bogies of the right gauge are rolled in, and the waggon gets eased down on the new bogies.
The TALGO train which is used between Spain and France has adjustable wheels to adapt to the different gauges.
Re:How did they do it? (Score:5, Informative)
Here's what's written in a history of the Illinois Central Railroad. Note that this re-gauging, On Friday, July 29, 1881, predates the one mentioned in the summary by several years.
"Most railroads in Illinois conformed to the Illinois Central gauge of four feet eight and one-half inches, commonly known as the English, or standard, gauge. But in the South the gauge of nearly all railroads...was five feet.
"Owing to the difference of three and one-half inches between the gauges at the Ohio River, sleeping cars, passenger cars, passenger coaches, baggage cars, and the freight cars employed in service from the completion of the rail route in 1873 were designed and fitted so that cars could be run over specially constructed dual gauge tracks at Cairo, jacked up and converted from standard to wide gauge, or vice versa, by removing one set of trucks and installing another on each trip.
"In the spring of 1881, Clarke, having obtained authority to undertake the conversion, announced a plan which was without precedent in the history of American railroading -- a plan to change the gauge of the entire 550-mile line between East Cairo and New Orleans in the same day -- in fact, within a few hours! This was the first Southern railroad east of the Mississippi River and one of the first in the entire country to change from wide to standard gauge..." ...
"To complete the herculean task, more than 3,000 men were distributed along the line. The work began as soon as it was light enough to see, and by 3 o'clock in the afternoon, every rail had been spiked into place in what the Railroad Gazette described as the 'the greatest feat ever accomplished in gauge changing!'
"Describing the methods employed, the Gazette said: ...
'The west rail was moved inward 3-1/2 inches. All the spikes on the inside of rails to be changed had already been drawn, except the spike in every fourth tie on the straight lines and every third tie on curves. Spikes for the new gauge were already driven in every fourth tie and third. All necessary spikes were distributed on the ends of the ties into which they were to be driven. Each section foreman was furnished with a narrow-gauge hand-car and a full set of tools."
"Clarke's feat was hailed as a "truly wonderful achievement," and in 1884-1886 when other Southern railroads began to lay plans for converting their lines to standard gauge, the leaned heavily on his instructions and experience."
Source:
Main Line of Mid-America
The Story of The Illinois Central Railroad
Carlton J. Corliss
Creative Age Press
1950
Re:Rail is best for heavy freight (Score:5, Informative)
Most of the energy losses at ~200 mph, are aerodynamic, not friction. Rail does not help there.
Even here Rail helps. If you have a 1600 passenger train half full, you have only one front with air friction per 800 passengers. With cars seated two each you need already 400 fronts where each one creates its own air friction. So even the most aerodynamically perfect cars wont come close to a single train even with no consideration going into air friction.
Re:Part of a general pattern (Score:5, Informative)
You're on the list for "most short sighted person in humanity". Just because something is an inconvenience for you doesn't mean that there is no benefit.
It sounds like you're delivering stuff by trucks/cars. Guess what, there might be something more important out there than you.
Trains deliver huge amounts of raw materials. Things like steel that are used to make trucks.
Trains deliver huge amounts of energy, namely coal used to power nearly half of the electricity in the US.
Try looking past your nose some time.
US freight rail is doing very well (Score:5, Informative)
The US has a freight rail system that is the envy of Europe. [economist.com] (Europe is ahead in passenger rail, but that loses money.) Intermodal traffic (containers) is way up over the last decade, and profitable. There's new rail construction going on, and rails and locomotives have been upgraded in recent years.
Modern large locomotives [getransportation.com] use what are essentially giant computer-controlled servomotors to drive the wheels, so that all the wheels on all the locomotives stay in sync and share the load equally, which means they can all be torqued up to just below where they start to slip. This means fewer locomotives per train, little or no wheel slip, and the ability to coordinate many locomotives spread throughout a train.
Last year, Union Pacific ran a train 3.5 miles long [youtube.com] from Los Angeles to Denver. Average freight train length in the US is now 6500 feet and climbing. That replaces a lot of trucks. Since Los Angeles built a no-grade-crossing rail connection to the port there, far fewer trucks are moving to the port.
Europe still has a lot of little 2-axle freight cars. Those disappeared from US trackage some time before World War Two, replaced by the standard big four-axle cars still used today. The bigger cars are also stronger, with a consistent minimum coupler strength, which means longer trains are possible.
Mixing high speed passenger trains and freight on the same track cuts severely into freight capacity. Each passenger train uses up the track time of six freights.
Re:Electric grid primitive? Compared to what? (Score:4, Informative)
You'll notice I wrote 110v(P-E) as in phase to earth, the hilarious American "split-phase" system is merely a testimony to how poor your domestic supply.
It's hard to jingoism your way around facts, but you still made a good go of it.
It is true that in the US we use the three wire Edison system and that it does have 110v to earth while in much of Europe they use straight 220v with one side earthed. But exactly how the transformer secondary is earthed does not change the amount of available power. The Edison system simply makes it possible to easily have both 220v and 110v in the same building.
Your statement that the US system "necessitates the use of 2-phase supplies for domestic heating" is true, but I do not see how this is a disadvantage. All you are saying is that one must connect the two supply conductors of a large electric heater to the proper terminals in the service panel so that it will receive 220v. So what?
(Aside to US electricians: I know that in your trade split 110v/220v supply is considered single phase. The poster is calling it two-phase because the two hot wires are 180 degrees out of phase. If we were to use strictly consistent terminology, the very old 110 volt only service has a single phase 110 volts from neutral, almost all houses now have two phases 180 degrees apart at 110 volts from neutral, and many office buildings have three phases 120 degrees apart, often at 110 volts with respect to neutral.)
As other posters have pointed out, you are wrong about water heaters. Only the very smallest are ever connected to a 110 volt supply. You are correct in your statements about electric tea kettles and power tools. Since almost all outlets in the typical American home are wired between one of the phases and the neutral, they can only deliver about 1500 watts.
I suspect that the justification for the Edison system is that 110 volts is less dangerous than 220 volts. This system provides a (supposedly) safer 110 volts for most plug-connected devices while still making 220 volts available for those things that need it.
In other words, your complaint is not with the US electrical distribution network, but with the fact that 110 volt outlets predominate in the US home.
I believe the biggest disadvantages of the US system are that it requires wires twice as thick and that many appliances (such as air conditioners) that should be running on 220 volts run on 110 volts because the manufactures know that few users would buy them if they had to install a 220 volt outlet in order to use them.
Finally, yes, there are 50 amp 220 volt/110 volt service panels still out there. At least in New England they are now very rare. 60 amp was standard in the 1960's and nothing less than 100 amp is installed today.