10,000km of track carrying 280-million tonnes of freight per annum...standard gauging costs around $3-million per kilometre, and standard gauging lines carrying 30 to 50 trains per day would be extremely complex if not impossible. Narrow gauge axle loads are now 26.5-tonnes, which is higher than most of the standard gauge network in Australia, so there's no real cost saving in widening the rails 14.5 inches. Then there's the standard gauging all the thousands of pieces of rollingstock. Long answer short - too expensive, too complicated and not enough economic return to require it.
@@CalvusTV, if politicians and senior bureaucrats were innovative thinkers, the initial comment and your reply to it would not have happened. if ng sleepers in qld and wa, and bg sleepers in victoria were replaced with convertible sleepers when replacement was required, the whole country would have been done 70 years ago. and if all switching points were also built in such a way to facilitate easy conversion to the standard gauge, and if all wheel axles were built in such a way to enable easy conversion like, for example i have seen something about wheels being able to be installed backwards in south australia because they were designed with the wheel hubs being offset or something like that. i bet all bg bogies, bar none, are convertible to sg with the use of a device previously invented. it's called a lathe. and if politicians had followed the many guidelines and recommendations since federation, especially those raised after the first and second world wars, it would have all been done. if you search on this instrument of satan (the internet), there are estimates of the annual cost to productivity of the differences in gauges. i believe i've seen a figure of about $5billion annually. the japanese would not have tolerated the break of gauge problem had they successfully invaded the country in the second world war. all states would have been converted to ng. douglas macarthur considered it an extremely serious issue. the yanks, with preparation, undertook conversion of nearly all of the non-standard lines on one day in 1866. the great western lines in uk were converted in 36 hours. i can envisage how conversions could be done with minimal disruptions. but this country is run by idiots not innovators. south australia has well prepared for conversion but has not followed through. as you would have observed when you were filming bauxite trains in wa, all the timber sleepers are being replaced with concrete sleepers. here was a missed opportunity. it's probably a good thing that the concrete sleepers have built-in obsolescence. they are intentionally designed with a weak point in the centre. perhaps as these crack where they are designed to, they may be replaced with long-life full width sleepers. and possibly in my lifetime. oh, by the way, i enjoy your clips.
Excellent footage Arthur! Good stuff as always! :-) Thank you.
Great videos
However is it not that we become a standard gauge system by now
10,000km of track carrying 280-million tonnes of freight per annum...standard gauging costs around $3-million per kilometre, and standard gauging lines carrying 30 to 50 trains per day would be extremely complex if not impossible. Narrow gauge axle loads are now 26.5-tonnes, which is higher than most of the standard gauge network in Australia, so there's no real cost saving in widening the rails 14.5 inches. Then there's the standard gauging all the thousands of pieces of rollingstock. Long answer short - too expensive, too complicated and not enough economic return to require it.
@@CalvusTV, if politicians and senior bureaucrats were innovative thinkers, the initial comment and your reply to it would not have happened. if ng sleepers in qld and wa, and bg sleepers in victoria were replaced with convertible sleepers when replacement was required, the whole country would have been done 70 years ago. and if all switching points were also built in such a way to facilitate easy conversion to the standard gauge, and if all wheel axles were built in such a way to enable easy conversion like, for example i have seen something about wheels being able to be installed backwards in south australia because they were designed with the wheel hubs being offset or something like that. i bet all bg bogies, bar none, are convertible to sg with the use of a device previously invented. it's called a lathe. and if politicians had followed the many guidelines and recommendations since federation, especially those raised after the first and second world wars, it would have all been done. if you search on this instrument of satan (the internet), there are estimates of the annual cost to productivity of the differences in gauges. i believe i've seen a figure of about $5billion annually. the japanese would not have tolerated the break of gauge problem had they successfully invaded the country in the second world war. all states would have been converted to ng. douglas macarthur considered it an extremely serious issue. the yanks, with preparation, undertook conversion of nearly all of the non-standard lines on one day in 1866. the great western lines in uk were converted in 36 hours. i can envisage how conversions could be done with minimal disruptions. but this country is run by idiots not innovators. south australia has well prepared for conversion but has not followed through. as you would have observed when you were filming bauxite trains in wa, all the timber sleepers are being replaced with concrete sleepers. here was a missed opportunity. it's probably a good thing that the concrete sleepers have built-in obsolescence. they are intentionally designed with a weak point in the centre. perhaps as these crack where they are designed to, they may be replaced with long-life full width sleepers. and possibly in my lifetime. oh, by the way, i enjoy your clips.
Yep I agree