←back to thread

Finland announces migration of its rail network to international gauge

(yle.fi)
461 points axelfontaine | 3 comments | 20 May 25 07:40 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
Show context
blueflow ◴[20 May 25 08:56 UTC] No.44039357[source]▶
Get a look on the track topology on openrailwaymap:

https://www.openrailwaymap.org/?style=gauge&lat=62.774837258...

replies(4): >>44039388 #>>44039396 #>>44039440 #>>44039840 #
reddalo ◴[20 May 25 09:01 UTC] No.44039396[source]▶
That's very interesting. I wonder why Spain is different than the rest of Europe, given it's connected by land.

It makes more sense for islands such as Ireland to retain their old gauge.

replies(6): >>44039561 #>>44039677 #>>44039680 #>>44039715 #>>44039795 #>>44043461 #
1. Maken ◴[20 May 25 09:27 UTC] No.44039561[source]▶
Nobody really knows. It was decided back in the XIX century when the rail network was build. The most common answer is that they thought larger locomotives would be required to climb the mountainous terrain in the Peninsula, which was not the case at all. Urban legends say that absolutely nobody in the committee that decided it had any idea about how trains work. Probably it was a protectionist measure to benefit local manufacturers.
replies(1): >>44040438 #
2. mbroncano ◴[20 May 25 11:46 UTC] No.44040438[source]▶
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_legend

Probably more to do with the fact that the first train in Spain was build in Cuba

replies(1): >>44040643 #
3. Maken ◴[20 May 25 12:12 UTC] No.44040643[source]▶
But the trains in Cuba used standard gauge. And the early trains in the north of Spain used (and still use) a narrow-gauge. It was when the central government decided to build a nation-wide network that the Iberian-gauge was chosen, making it incompatible with both the pre-existing Spanish railways and other continental European railways, in the infamous "Informe Subercase" [1]. It is the perfect example of design-by-committee, in which no technical reasons are given other than there are wider and narrower gauges, so they choose an arbitrary middle ground.

bast copy of the Subercase report I could find: [1] https://www.agrupament.cat/documents/Informe%20Subercase.pdf