to the best of my knowledge it's the ONLY RAILWAY IN THE WORLD WITH THAT GAUGE what is the matter with Americans this is like BART all over again
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at least BART's 1676mm gauge is used in other countries: specifically Argentina, Chile, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka
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Actually 1435 is an international standard, Great Britain and France used it from the birth of the railway
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it took Britain a while to settle on 1435mm (Brunel was famously opposed to it, insisting on 2140mm), and even today, 1435 (while regarded as Standard Gauge) is only used on about 55% of the world's railways This map shows prevailing gauge by countrypic.twitter.com/ciq0jtEmL3
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My point was : even if USA are often an international standard, this time it's even more. 55% of the world is way more the just the USA.
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Nothing in my tweet suggested that the USA was the *only* country that uses 1435--it was to emphasize that WMATA can't interoperate with any adjacent railways (which are all, by virtue of geography, American)
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hahahahaha
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Can you run a 1429 train on 1435? Because that would make for a strong logistical advantage for WMATA in case of war.
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Primary use of subways in a war is as bunkers, not for troop or material movement
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FRA Orange Book says that for Class 2 and 3 track, you're allowed 4'8" up to 4'9 3/4" Class 4 and 5 reduces max to 4'9 1/2"
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right but just because it's permitted doesn't mean that there's any advantage to using a unique spec
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Of course, just providing background.
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My understanding is that it supposed to improve stability at high speeds: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunting_oscillation … I think the rolling stock is still 1435, but the tracks are 1429, giving a tighter fit that in theory should be a bit more stable and maybe also quieter.
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I'm not sure how much benefit it actually gets you, but it certainly sounds like a thing that people in the 1960's would have wanted to try in their next generation subway system...
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In my looking, one of the guys on the Trains forums was one of the project engineers for it and said it had to do with the cylindrical wheels (the wheels have little to no taper) and smoothness of running. Apparently PRR used to do this with the Pass/Freight lines as well
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