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Finland announces migration of its rail network to international gauge

(yle.fi)
461 points axelfontaine | 1 comments | 20 May 25 07:40 UTC | HN request time: 0.207s | source
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gorgoiler ◴[20 May 25 10:21 UTC] No.44039878[source]▶
There ought to be good reason for optimism with this project. The land is already purchased so you “just” need to re-lay the track.

Ballast cleaners* are a thing and they are already pretty amazing at what they do, namely taking apart track and then putting it back, in place, from a machine that runs on those very tracks itself. I could imagine a giant version that not only cleans the ballast but also unties then reties the track back together at the new gauge.

* https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballast_cleaner

replies(2): >>44039937 #>>44041502 #
1. zokier ◴[20 May 25 10:33 UTC] No.44039937[source]▶
> The land is already purchased so you “just” need to re-lay the track.

While the details are unknown, this project will almost certainly mean new tracks alongside the old tracks at least for the main lines. Which means that the existing corridors in many places would not have enough space. Additionally there is probably desire to improve the geometry to allow higher speed trains, so that makes the existing corridors less useful