this channel has steady improved the quality of its videos! Keep up the good work. Hope see more professional videos like this in the future. Excellently done.
Great video! What I read in an article is about inter-operability. Since Railways run on broad gauge therefore the board chose the same for metro (to make it inter-operable if required). And many countries whose legacy systems ran on a particular track generally laid out those particular tracks for newer systems. Thats completely understandable. But there was an argument that railway network and metro network have never been inter-operable and it might be that Railways is only trying to increase its "total track length" and also might favour its desired railway coach manufacturers. When east-west metro's expansion plans to Airport was announced I remember an article where an expert was saying that due to the difference in gauges between the east-west metro and new garia-airport metro the east-west metro cannot use or share the infrastructure of the latter and would require existing line (east-west) to be physically extended. Had they been on the same gauge then any train on a line could be deployed on another line therefore increasing "track utilization". Benefit - A person from Howrah could easily board a train and reach New Town directly or vice versa. I feel there was lack of communication between the authorities. When we already have a existing "legacy" metro running on broad gauge then why construct another line with standard gauge and plan on "linking" the entire city?!! Standard gauge could be used in cities who did not have a metro system in the first place. A city like Kolkata already has a metro system with broad gauge and broad gauge should have been used throughout. Thus inter-operability is a problem here within the metro line system itself. This is strictly my opinion.
You've missed the main point. Having different railways to different gauges creates trans-shipment problems. A train cannot run from one system onto the next. It was so important that all the railways in Europe got together in the middle of the 1800s and agreed on one standard gauge, which is known as the Berne Gauge. But Spain, Portugal and Russia opted for the broad gauge. As a result, all freight running to those countries has to be unloaded from one system and reloaded on the other, which is a waste of resources and slows down the freight. In Britain the Great Western Railway was built to 7 ft. gauge. It eventually had to convert to standard gauge and cost them many millions in doing so. In Australia they have three gauges. It creates real problems , and mixed-gauge trackwork is highly complex and expensive to maintain. You mentioned the Bay Area Rapid Transit System in the San Francisco area. That's where I live, and I can tell you that using the Indian gauge for BART was totally absurd. BART is surrounded by railways using the standard gauge. Not only can it not inter-run with those lines, it cannot even get its rolling stock deliverred by rail: it has to be transported by road. If you use standard gauge then locomotives, rolling stock and trackwork can all be bought ready-made from many suppliers. If you use the broad gauge then everything has to be specially made at great additional cost. The problem of having different gauges was solved in Europe in the 1850s. Now trains can run from one system to the other. The same goes for North America. One standard gauge from Alaska right down to Mexico and beyond. The only place where other than standard gauge can be justified is in narrow gauge mountain railways, where the ability to negotiate sharp curves is fundamental.
i recall reading that the BART engineers actually tested what was the optimum track width back in the day + carriage sizes. there was another reason for having break of gauge - stop rival companies using their track i believe. fun fact george stephenson said that were he to do again... he'd add some extra inches to 1435mm gauge as it in hindsight it was a bit narrow.
@@mrrolandlawrence Since BART is not a public company, and is wholly-owned by the local authorities, there was never any question of the other local lines using the system, as all the other local lines, such as the San Francisco Muni, were owned by the same local authorities.
The standard in India, Bangladesh and Pakistan is 1676mm. Introducing 1435mm metro stock creates the transhipment problem you describe. What you describe as standard gauge is not standard in many parts of the world and introducing it in India is creating break of gauge locations that never existed before.
The Market Frankford line in Philadelphia Pennsylvania. And the Subway Surfers trolleys also in Philadelphia. They use a custom Rail gauge it's called Pennsylvania Trolley gauge or PTG.
Very informative video. Gr8 work guys. If BEML rakes start working then it will be gr8. At then we can boast of having a brand spanking new rakes for our metro as well.
You must have heard yesterday the time's of India Kolkata edition carried an article that the west Bengal gov't is insisting on beml rakes only for Kolkata east west metro your campaign has had its effect!
Why ICF and BEML are fighting with each other for metro rakes is beyond my understanding - one should focus on railway coaches whereas the other should develop metro rakes. BEML having a partnership with Hyundai Rotem has better know-how of metro rakes than ICF.
I preferred the Madras to Madurai Standard gauge, I was sad when it changed over to broad gauge. For some reason, the South India standard gauge trains felt cleaner, the stations with the small tracks felt more cosy, I know it's a strange word to use but it did. Same is true with the trains, they also felt more cosy is a good way.
In metro systems trains don't change track and start running on another line. Different lines are run separately, and people have to change from one line to another in an interchange station.
Can anyone please tell me why there is still no concern for installing PSDs on north south metro kolkata plus why are the other new lines other than the east west metro stations are not being built with PSDs ?
Another small factor which you forgot is the cheaper rakes. While DMRC was originally built, it was already very costly affair and thus they chose to have an Indian partner for the manufacturing of rolling stock. This allowed for using the existing Indian gauge, which in addition would also allow for easy transportation from Bangalore to Delhi. Remember, back then there was no Bombardier or Alstom or anyone else who could even remotely meet the cost of an assembled in India rake. Since then though, international rolling stock players have set up shop in India. For them it is easy to make standard gauge stock which is the most common throughout the world. If today we ask them to make Indian gauge stock, they will ask for more money as it will require redesigning of the rakes. Now that, the cost of rakes has shifted in favour of standard gauge, even all the new lines of DMRC are standard gauge rather than broad gauge. Because while operationally it makes little to no difference, standard gauge is significantly cheaper than broad gauge.
Delhi metro also has got broad gauge lines; Kolkata metro rakes are developed by ICF which has working knowledge of broad gauge coaches, hence the same.
In the last part of this vdo, there was a new wreck being pulled on broad gauge near DDJ station. How is this possible as EW metro is using standard gauge??
yes all your points seem to hold true except for.... in the usa in california... engineers in the 1960s-70s worked out the best track width to actually be broad gauge (BART system). they performed many many studies & came to the same conclusion. the cost of track is a small fraction of the overall cost of a train line. stations, bridges, buying land etc eat up the most money. broad tracks dont need to be tamping so often as they are more stable. also india has a lot of broad gauge infrastructure. break of gauge costs more money. ...narrow gauge track makes sense if india is having only a small population that needs access to public transport.
It would have been better to not have any music in this video, it didn't improve the video but lessened it as I had to reach to listen to what was being spoken.
Yeah , if you make legs of train narrower , while leaving the upper body same of as the wide gauge , everyone would blame you when the train would derail on higher speeds Passenger train are light in weight so they don't matter much , but coach widness to track widness would matter very very much in case of freight trains
"While the E-W Metro Corridor coaches are 2.9m wide, that of the old ones is 2.74m only" - as per an official when approached by TOI. News link - timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolkata/metro-finds-it-hard-to-procure-custom-fit-rakes/articleshow/67607805.cms
@@MetroRailBlog but world wide metro rail technology based on standard guage.. And research and development based on standard guage... So future technology can not run easily on broad guage..
Standard gauge is not for India or any big country. Whatever told about standard gauge is myth. Visit yellow and blue lines of Delhi Metro and you can see all sharp turns, underground lines and elevated lines are talking about. Secondly, there is not much cost difference. If you are doing some on large scale, cost will reduce automatically. This cost stuff was raised by babus at and some so called financial experts. If you are going to do something big, don't talk like a kanjoos bania. Broad gauge is being used at a very large scale so cost will be cheaper if planned well. Spain is running HSR on broad gauge. India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Shrlanka, Chile, Argentina, East USA, Australia, Russia, Ukraine and other soviet countries have broad gauge because it is more stable in extreme weather conditions. No country is crying cost .. cost... If you let babus decide technical thing, they will shut down entire railway system, schools, colleges, universities, city buses, parks.... because of 'cost factor'. One more thing, as far high speed, both Germany and France asked India to continue on broad gauge but India did not listen to them.
Why are you going on and on beating around the bush about standard gauge and broad gauge? It seems like you completely missed the point and ranting on about curvature and surface area and all that. The choice of standard gauge has nothing to do with technicalities or engineering and purely a commercial one. Standard gauge is the widely used gauge and the rolling stock manufacturers typically make it for standard gauge. They have to completely customize it for a different gauge like broad gauge. Their off the shelf rolling stock is standard gauge. Since India still doesn’t have the technology to make HSR rolling stock, they have to rely on companies like Alstom, Hitachi, Talgo or Bombardier for rolling stock and all of their off shelf offerings are for SG. Russia’s Sapsan runs on the 1520mm Russian gauge and so does their semi-high speed trains. Siemens custom made rolling stock for all those HSR so India could go in that direction. But purely as a commercial decision, SG is better until India is able to make HSR rolling stock.
![Broad Gauge VS Standard Gauge [Metro Railways]](/img/logo.svg){kind=logo}
