Why is rail such a poor relation in NZ?

[robincole]

One thing you guys have overlooked is, like a lot of countries outside of Europe, NZ's railways were built to a fairly basic standard. If you travel any sort of distance on a UK train you'll notice your train spends a lot of time in cuttings, on embankments, crossing arch viaducts and going through tunnels. Some railways, US railroads example, made large scale improvements to their infrastrucure in the early 1900's.In NZ (and Australia) railways followed the contours of the land and neither country has made that much of effort to improve things.

[vworp]

One thing you guys have overlooked is, like a lot of countries outside of Europe, NZ's railways were built to a fairly basic standard. If you travel any sort of distance on a UK train you'll notice your train spends a lot of time in cuttings, on embankments, crossing arch viaducts and going through tunnels. Some railways, US railroads example, made large scale improvements to their infrastrucure in the early 1900's.In NZ (and Australia) railways followed the contours of the land and neither country has made that much of effort to improve things.

I don't know about Australia, but the terrain requirements in the US and UK are completely different to the requirements in NZ. The terrain always made it financially difficult to even plan a railway. One other issue our terrain presented us with was the Cape gauge, which I fear holds us back too - if we were running standard gauge railway, our speed limits could be far more relaxed, our choices of rolling stock less limited.

[kaiwhara]

I'm not so convinced our track gauge actually reduces our speed from Standard, in fact I believe for our conditions it has the opposite effect!

I don't know about Australia, but the terrain requirements in the US and UK are completely different to the requirements in NZ. The terrain always made it financially difficult to even plan a railway. One other issue our terrain presented us with was the Cape gauge, which I fear holds us back too - if we were running standard gauge railway, our speed limits could be far more relaxed, our choices of rolling stock less limited.

[c46andc47]

]
I don't know about Australia, but the terrain requirements in the US and UK are completely different to the requirements in NZ. The terrain always made it financially difficult to even plan a railway. One other issue our terrain presented us with was the Cape gauge, which I fear holds us back too - if we were running standard gauge railway, our speed limits could be far more relaxed, our choices of rolling stock less limited.

I think that the usual "NZ speeds are low because of the narrow guage" argument is back to front. One of the reasons the pioneers chose the 3ft 6 inch guage was because that allowed sharper curves, which in turn reduced construction costs. Because the curves are sharp speeds are low.

But note - the speeds are low because of the TERRAIN, not because of the guage.

[geoff_184]

I don't believe in the curve argument either, as you'll find our sharpest curve radii in places like Australia and the US as well. Our guage was chosen because the shorter sleepers and narrower formation were cheaper.

[Riggles]

From my Russian rail engineer friend, the narrower the gauge the tighter the curves can be. Sure you can go like for like however if you have a wider gauge doing the same radii it will result in more wear and tear.

[geoff_184]

From my Russian rail engineer friend, the narrower the gauge the tighter the curves can be.

Indeed, but that doesn't change the fact that our mainlines are built to radii that you'll find in similar terrain in countries with standard gauge. So while sharper curves may be possible with our gauge, they weren't built that way.

[Riggles]

But we would be experiencing less wear than said railways in other countries, which would make it again that our gauge was mainly for cost saving along with the shorter sleepers.

[geoff_184]

But we would be experiencing less wear than said railways in other countries, which would make it again that our gauge was mainly for cost saving along with the shorter sleepers.

We experience more wear because we have more curves, and that's dictated by the terrain.

[Riggles]

We experience more wear because we have more curves, and that's dictated by the terrain.

OK I'll keep this simple.

If you have two corners of the same radii, the one with the narrower gauge will experience less wear and tear.

[robincole]

Terrain plus a lack of money was and is still the problem. Same in Australia, the Sydney-Brisbane line has that much curveture it makes the Main Trunk look arrow straight. England is not all dead flat by any means,but in Victorian times they had plenty of money and plenty of cheap labour, so they cut through hills and bridged valleys etc.

[Riggles]

Back in the days of the British rail-roads they were all private ventures and one death for every 100m of tunnel excavated was pretty good going.

[richard]

The British don't have any rail-roads they have RAILWAYS and so do we but not as fast!!

[c46andc47]

The British don't have any rail-roads they have RAILWAYS and so do we but not as fast!!

NZ also has RAILWAY stations but unfortunately many people (including those who board the trains) do not seem to know what they are

[john-ston]

The British don't have any rail-roads they have RAILWAYS and so do we but not as fast!!

Are you that biased against roads? Reminds me of the anti-men brigade.

England is not all dead flat by any means,but in Victorian times they had plenty of money and plenty of cheap labour, so they cut through hills and bridged valleys etc.

Relatively speaking though, England is pretty flat.

[Chris Randal.]

Relatively speaking though, England is pretty flat.

Try the Settle and Carlisle, Shap, Slochd - and I'm sure that the friendly signaller from Cornwall will have a few more, probably some from his old stamping ground of Wiltshire!

[john-ston]

Try the Settle and Carlisle, Shap, Slochd - and I'm sure that the friendly signaller from Cornwall will have a few more, probably some from his old stamping ground of Wiltshire!

And compare that with say, Hamilton to Palmerston North and Christchurch to Greymouth

[robincole]

I once read a comparison between the Settle-Carisle line and the main line across Tasmania. Both lines cross similar terrain, the S-C gradients are around 1 in 100, while in Tasmania they're twice as steep. The Tasmanian line has several times the total curvature of the S-C, which is good for 70mph or more, while in Tassie on a few good stretches they're permited to do 70kph.