AHC/WI The British rail network had a larger loading gauge?

QTXAdsy

QTXAdsy

Compared to many places in the world that use standard gauge, Britain has by the far the most restricted loading gauge which in many ways is due to the past of small tunnels during the early days of collieries and horse drawn coaches. But what if the British rail network had sometime during the early days of the railway had a loading gauge that was on equal with that would be used on the continent?

What would be needed before 1900 for the rail network to adopt this and how different things might've been in the long term if trains had been a little bit wider?
 

Kevin C. Smith

I think your best bet is with, or just after, the Gauge Act of 1846. While setting a larger (and, more importantly, standardized) loading gauge might be easy enough, determining the dimensions of that loading gauge will be trickier. However, I can see a gauge approximately the same as the French; which, iirc, is among the smaller on the continent-so that might not be that much help.

Once you get too far into the 1850's however, I fear the opportunity will have passed.
 

trash80

It either needs an early POD or Britain to have been invaded or much more badly damaged in the World Wars (and thus give opportunity for reconstruction).

It would solve quite a lot of problems though, commuter trains on the busiest routes could be double deckers (real ones not that 4DD oddity)
 
Dan1988

Dan1988

Glyndwr01 said:
en.wikipedia.org

Aberdeen Railway - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

Dundee and Arbroath Railway - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org

Arbroath and Forfar Railway - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
all used 5'6" gauge
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The track gauge itself it not the problem; the problem is the loading gauge, which is where the whole "Britain has the most restrictive loading gauge in the Western world" thing comes from. That is what the OP is referring to. As for how to make a taller and wider loading gauge work - that I don't know, apart from somehow making the GWR people involved with redoing the bridges and tunnels and all that in the rest of Britain - in other words, a compromise in the gauge war that gives Britain both standard gauge (a win for Stephenson) and a much more generous clearance for trains (and hence a win for Brunel, since the clearances and tolerances for the loading gauge would be designed around his track gauge). That, to me, would make some sort of sense as a compromise.
 

Masked Grizzly

Dan1988 said:
The track gauge itself it not the problem; the problem is the loading gauge, which is where the whole "Britain has the most restrictive loading gauge in the Western world" thing comes from. That is what the OP is referring to. As for how to make a taller and wider loading gauge work - that I don't know, apart from somehow making the GWR people involved with redoing the bridges and tunnels and all that in the rest of Britain - in other words, a compromise in the gauge war that gives Britain both standard gauge (a win for Stephenson) and a much more generous clearance for trains (and hence a win for Brunel, since the clearances and tolerances for the loading gauge would be designed around his track gauge). That, to me, would make some sort of sense as a compromise.
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Had such a compromise happened would a much more generous clearance for trains have made Brunel's loading gauge comparable to the Berne gauge?
 

Kevin C. Smith

The GWR loading gauge was one to two feet greater in both height (13') and width (11' 6") than most other railways. I am not sure that any proposal to graft that onto standard gauge tracks would get anywhere. While present North American loading gauges (clearances) are even larger, I think there would have been serious concerns about stability back then.

One thing to keep in mind is that a physically larger freight car is not necessarily an economically larger one, especially given British railways merchandise traffic in smaller shipments on faster schedules; and the restricted size of facilities for loading at coal mines.

Historical Loading Gauges on british railways

www.devboats.co.uk www.devboats.co.uk
 
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QTXAdsy

QTXAdsy

Masked Grizzly said:
Had such a compromise happened would a much more generous clearance for trains have made Brunel's loading gauge comparable to the Berne gauge?
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Interesting thing to note that the GCR was built on the Berne gauge which they hoped, had their original plan to build a tunnel to France happened, then they could take on the more wider continental rolling stock.

Had the whole UK adopted the Berne gauge sooner then there might've not been any need for the GCR and perhaps butterfly it away? Maybe then we might've seen some of the Eurostar trains exploring more of the network thanks to the generous gauge such as going beyond Leeds?
 

Masked Grizzly

QTXAdsy said:
Interesting thing to note that the GCR was built on the Berne gauge which they hoped, had their original plan to build a tunnel to France happened, then they could take on the more wider continental rolling stock.

Had the whole UK adopted the Berne gauge sooner then there might've not been any need for the GCR and perhaps butterfly it away? Maybe then we might've seen some of the Eurostar trains exploring more of the network thanks to the generous gauge such as going beyond Leeds?
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Perhaps if Ireland also uses Standard Gauge, the network could be expanded even further. - https://anonw.com/2020/01/05/engineers-want-tunnel-of-love-under-irish-sea-to-unite-uk/
 
SealTheRealDeal

SealTheRealDeal

Assuming WWII isn't butterflied, British tanks would have far less cramped turrets, which means that British tanks would likely have much better upgrade potential.
 
Dan1988

Dan1988

Masked Grizzly said:
While the GWR and LSWR used Broad and Standard Track Gauges respectively, is known what their respectively Loading Gauges were?
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Apart from what the poster above me said, broad gauge in this historical context covers a lot of non-standard gauges wider than Stephenson gauge; the standard gauge chosen in the UK (and why broad gauge was a thing in Ireland) was theoretically in part due to an average of all the track gauges in existence - which worked for Ireland, but in the UK one cannot help but assume politics and economics got in the way of the equations.
 
QTXAdsy

QTXAdsy

Andrew Boyd said:
What I believe for sure is that we'd probably see many proposed engines IOTL, like the LNER Gresley 4-8-2 and LMS Stanier 4-8-4, built.
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Seeing the Gresley 4-8-2 in the flesh would've been one hell of a machine to see though it would be interesting to see if it could out perform the P2 though seeing as it did a lot of damage on the Scottish routes it was built for did make it a bit of a liability, then again providing ITTL that the Scottish routes are more generous in their loading gauge to provide such a beast and maybe might help the P2 last longer and not get scrapped early on. How the P2 will be like ITTL lasting longer is another can of worms to look into.

trash80 said:
It would solve quite a lot of problems though, commuter trains on the busiest routes could be double deckers (real ones not that 4DD oddity)
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Seeing double decker trains would undoubtedly be of great help with capacity on the busy routes and maybe the Intercity routes and I could imagine on something like on the West Highland route there being one for the tourism with more observation viewing points seen from the train.

All in all, such a slight change to the network being wider (most likely being a Berne gauge as mentioned above) could go a long way in the long run for the network in terms of capacity and space.
 

Devvy

Donor
One of my infrequent poke-my-head-in trips to pre-1900, and enjoyed seeing some more train threads here too!

QTXAdsy said:
Interesting thing to note that the GCR was built on the Berne gauge which they hoped, had their original plan to build a tunnel to France happened, then they could take on the more wider continental rolling stock.

Had the whole UK adopted the Berne gauge sooner then there might've not been any need for the GCR and perhaps butterfly it away? Maybe then we might've seen some of the Eurostar trains exploring more of the network thanks to the generous gauge such as going beyond Leeds?
Click to expand...

Sadly, not quite correct, as per Kevin C Smith's link. The GCR gauge is slightly larger then several other GB railway loading gauges, but it's definitely not Berne - and the GCR London Extension started construction in the (very) late 1890s, whilst the Berne gauge convention didn't occur until 1912.

Best guess I have on this topic is the GWR broad gauge having a wider effect. Whilst I doubt opting for broad gauge as standard is realistic, maybe a wider loading gauge on all new lines built subsequently could be a lasting effect of the GWR broad gauge years? Not sure, it's a bit before the BR years :)

Oddly enough for double decker trains, we still wouldn't get the same capacity as the continent as we have higher platforms, which would still require the train doors to be between the lower and upper floors. Most likely position would be above the wheels/bogies, which would require a single mid-level floor above bogie for inter-carriage connection and doors, and then divide upper and lower floors between the bogies - much as they do in Japan. You wouldn't get a constant floor height through the train though, inhibiting disabled access.
 
QTXAdsy

QTXAdsy

Devvy said:
One of my infrequent poke-my-head-in trips to pre-1900, and enjoyed seeing some more train threads here too!



Sadly, not quite correct, as per Kevin C Smith's link. The GCR gauge is slightly larger then several other GB railway loading gauges, but it's definitely not Berne - and the GCR London Extension started construction in the (very) late 1890s, whilst the Berne gauge convention didn't occur until 1912.

Best guess I have on this topic is the GWR broad gauge having a wider effect. Whilst I doubt opting for broad gauge as standard is realistic, maybe a wider loading gauge on all new lines built subsequently could be a lasting effect of the GWR broad gauge years? Not sure, it's a bit before the BR years :)

Oddly enough for double decker trains, we still wouldn't get the same capacity as the continent as we have higher platforms, which would still require the train doors to be between the lower and upper floors. Most likely position would be above the wheels/bogies, which would require a single mid-level floor above bogie for inter-carriage connection and doors, and then divide upper and lower floors between the bogies - much as they do in Japan. You wouldn't get a constant floor height through the train though, inhibiting disabled access.
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Regarding the platforms, a fair point, though that is assuming a British rail network uses lower platforms here early on?

One fun thing to think about the GCR was that it was built to handle foreign loads to take from the Northern cities to the continent and even if the GCR shut down as IOTL, most of the rail network ITTL would already be more than able to take the wider trains onto the intended places that they would've went anyway.

If the channel tunnel gets built here and the lines are used to link up with the tunnel then in some ways the dream of connecting the North of England to the continent that those in the GCR wanted would've come true...just sadly without their London Extension route. Maybe that'll will become a thing in your TL! ;)

Forgot to mention with wider locomotives that more steam locomotives here might've benefited from mechanical stokers which I believe were experimented on breifly.
 

Masked Grizzly

Kevin C. Smith said:
Check the link in my reply above. It seems a pretty complete list.
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Dan1988 said:
Apart from what the poster above me said, broad gauge in this historical context covers a lot of non-standard gauges wider than Stephenson gauge; the standard gauge chosen in the UK (and why broad gauge was a thing in Ireland) was theoretically in part due to an average of all the track gauges in existence - which worked for Ireland, but in the UK one cannot help but assume politics and economics got in the way of the equations.
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So the 11.6ft width of GWR Broad Gauge's Loading Gauge was closer to the 11.8ft width of the SE-C Gauge (that is to be the future European standard) while its 15ft height was closer to the 15.2ft height of the G2 and GC Loading Gauges, whereas the GWR's 9.6ft width and 13.6ft height Loading Gauge is still short of the 11.3ft width and 14ft height of the Berne Gauge?
 
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Devvy

Donor
QTXAdsy said:
Maybe then we might've seen some of the Eurostar trains exploring more of the network thanks to the generous gauge such as going beyond Leeds?
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Forgot to respond to this point. Eurostar in terms of loading gauge can run pretty much everywhere (subject to overhead power!) - there used to be a Eurostar depot at Manchester for when such services were envisaged. The limitations are predominately 1) power supply related in terms of can enough power be supplied overhead - the BR Class 373 / e300 trains drew somewhere around 12 megawatts at least - over double that of the Class 91 / IC225, and 2) immigration related as Her Majesty's finest immigration officials insist that border checks for those coming to the UK must take place before the train enters the UK. This means that realistically it gets very difficult to offer multiple stops in either jurisdiction (UK or Schengen) before crossing the Chunnel, because you can't offer domestic trips within that jurisdiction prior to crossing because it's a) illegal in Schengen to gather data about domestic travellers (so UK can't check passports for Brussels to Lille travellers), and b) within UK that might not be illegal, but would be a massive turn off for passengers and would destroy the business case. So you end up with only a point to point London-Paris or London-Brussels trip, with all journeys on Eurostar being mandatory cross-border operations.

On the ECML, the loading gauge is fine for the 373/e300 - as you've said, it used to run to Leeds. The only barrier is the King Edward bridge at Newcastle (the western quad tracked rail bridge). The approach from the ECML south western direction to the bridge is a tight curve - if you look closely on Google maps, the quad tracks narrows to triple track for the curve, before widening out to quad track again as it straightens out. It had to be narrowed to triple track due to loading gauge concerns, specifically the carriage overhang as it goes round the curve as coaches began to get longer. The articulated roughly 19m e300 coach still fouls the gauging unfortunately. North from the bridge, it's likely fine all the way to Edinburgh and beyond!

QTXAdsy said:
If the channel tunnel gets built here and the lines are used to link up with the tunnel then in some ways the dream of connecting the North of England to the continent that those in the GCR wanted would've come true...just sadly without their London Extension route. Maybe that'll will become a thing in your TL! ;)
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*cough* no further comment. I think I've worked a creative way around the problems I mentioned above....!
 
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