With railways, a break of gauge occurs where a line of one gauge meets a line of a different

gauge. Trains and rolling stock cannot run through without some form of conversion between
gauges, and freight and passengers must otherwise be transshipped. A break of gauge adds delays,
cost, and inconvenience.

Contents

 1Advantages and disadvantages

o 1.1Advantages
 1.1.1For passengers
 1.1.2For towns along the lines
o 1.2Disadvantages
 1.2.1When buying trains
 2Overcoming a break of gauge
o 2.1Bogie exchange and variable gauge
o 2.2Dual gauge and track gauge conversion
o 2.3Piggyback operation
o 2.4Containerisation
 3Types
o 3.1Minor breaks of gauge
o 3.2Nominal breaks of gauge
o 3.3Other types of breaks
 4Gauge conversions
o 4.1Gauge orphan
o 4.2Gauge outreach
 5Other issues
 6Examples
o 6.1Europe
 6.1.1United Kingdom
 6.1.2Russian gauge meeting western gauge
 6.1.3Iberian gauge meeting western gauge
 6.1.4Local narrow gauge lines meeting mainlines
o 6.2North America
o 6.3South America
o 6.4Asia
 6.4.1People's Republic of China
 6.4.2Iran
 6.4.3Japan
 6.4.4North Korea
 6.4.5Sakhalin
 6.4.6Taiwan
o 6.5Africa
o 6.6Oceania
 6.6.1Australia
 6.6.1.1Origins
 6.6.1.2Current
 6.6.2New Zealand
 7See also
 8References
 9Bibliography
 10External links
Advantages

Bogey changing in Brest at the Belarusian-Polish border

Narrow gauges tend to be associated with smaller loading gauges and sharper curves, which tend to
reduce initial capital costs. This offsets the costs of any traffic affected by the break of gauge.
Historically, narrow gauge railways were primarily built on marginal lines, mostly through hilly and
mountainous terrain to cut costs and enable any type of rail service at all. Associated disadvantages
were not recognized as much as many rail lines were operated independent of potentially connecting
lines regardless of gauge as competing companies built and operated them. Only the building of
union stations or the nationalization of railroads changed this.
An advantage is that invading armies may be severely hampered (as when Germany invaded the
USSR in World War II).
Another advantage might be that if the different gauges have different loading gauges, the break of
gauge helps prevent the larger wagons straying onto lines with smaller tunnels.[1]
Similarly, if the larger and smaller gauges use different couplers or brakes, the break of gauge tends
to keep the different couplers separate.
For passengers

For passenger trains the inconvenience is less, especially at major stations where many passengers
change trains or end their journeys anyway. Therefore, some passenger-only railways have been
built with gauges otherwise not used in the concerned countries. For example, the high-speed
railways (and some rapid transit lines) in Japan and Spain use 1,435 mm (4 ft 8 1⁄2 in) while their
respective mainline railroad systems use 1,067 mm (3 ft 6 in) and 1,668 mm(5 ft 5 21⁄32 in).
For night trains, which are very common in places like Russia, train change is less desirable. For
these, often the bogies are replaced, even if it takes much more time than having passengers
change trains.
For towns along the lines[edit]
If local government has influence over the construction of railways, some may see it as desirable for
trains (and passengers) to stop in rather than pass through their town. For instance, prior to the US
Civil War, many cities in the South had a break of gauge or two separate stations at different ends of
town necessitating change of trains or time consuming transshipment which nonetheless brought
commerce and profit to the towns. Only during the Civil War did state and Confederate authorities
notice the military and economic problems this brought but only the post-bellum Union government
was able to largely solve those problems through conversion of almost all lines to standard gauge.
Disadvantages[edit]

Bogie changing in Ussuriisk (near Vladivostok) at the Chinese–Russian border

One solution to the break-of-gauge problem – the transporter car

Transshipping freight from cars of one gauge to cars of another is very labour- and time-intensive,
and increases the risk of damage to goods. If the capacity of the freight cars on both systems does
not match, additional inefficiencies can arise. If the frequency is low, trains might need to wait a long
time for its counterpart to arrive before transshipping. This is avoided by storing the goods, but that
is also an inconvenience.
Technical solutions to avoid transshipping include variable gauge axles, replacing the bogies of cars,
and using transporter cars that can carry a car of a different gauge.
Talgo and CAF have developed dual-gauge axles (variable gauge axles) which permit through
running between broad gauge and standard gauge. In Japan the Gauge Change Train, built on
Talgo patents[citation needed], runs on standard and narrow 1,067 mm (3 ft 6 in) gauge.
Breaks-of-gauge are avoided by installing dual gauge track, either permanently or as part of a
project to replace one gauge with another.
At most breaks-of-gauge passengers have to change trains, but there are a few trains that run
through, for example, the Talgo (variable-gauge axles, see above), and trains from Russia to China
or Russia to Europe (bogie exchange), although on the latter two the passengers usually have to
leave the train for some time whilst the accommodation work is done.

When buying trains[edit]

Railroads of unusual gauges or loading gauges have problems procuring trains or may be forced to
choose between an oligopoly or even monopoly of suppliers that cater to their specific needs. This
may be deliberate on the part of suppliers as some streetcar lines were built to unique specifications
to ensure buyer lock-in. However, in modern times rail gauge itself is often not the most important
factor but rather other aspects like electrification system or loading gauge. Trains crossing
the Channel Tunnel for instance had to be custom made prior to the construction of High Speed
1 despite both Britain and France having standard gauge, because the British loading gauge is
narrower and the legacy lines in the south of Britain were electrified through third rail rather than
overhead wiring.

Overcoming a break of gauge[edit]

A cartoon depicting the horrors of goods transfer at the break of gauge at Gloucester in 1843

Where trains encounter a different gauge, such as at the Spanish–French border or the Russian–
Chinese one, the traditional solution has always been transloading (often called transshipment in
discussions of break of gauge), that is, the transfer of passengers and freight to cars on the other
system. When transloading from one gauge to another, chances are that the quantity of rolling stock
on each gauge is unbalanced, leading to more idle rolling stock on one gauge than the other. This is
obviously far from optimal, and a number of more efficient schemes have been devised.
Although various ways of mitigating the problem without resorting to transloading were conceivable
even in the early era of railways[2]:202–203 (including rollbocks, transporter wagons, dual gauge, and
even containerization or variable gauge axles), they were not implemented during the nastiest flare-
up of the Gauge War in the 1840s, which resulted in horrendous spectacles of confused and
wasteful transloading.[2]:202–203 L. T. C. Rolt's biography of Isambard Kingdom Brunel (mastermind of
the broad gauge) remarks on the apparent mysteriousness of this lack of implementation,[2]:202–203 but
a likely explanation is that the combatants at the time were more interested in winning the Gauge
War, defeating the other gauge, than in demonstrating how peaceful coexistence could be
developed. Rolt states that the shocking confusion seen in an editorial cartoon of transloading chaos
at Gloucester in 1843 was deliberately contrived, as later openly confessed by a
railway goods manager, as a spectacle for a visiting parliamentary committee.[2]:202–203 Rolt states that
the germ of the idea of containerization was known even by this time,[2]:202–203 which is interesting in
that the full potential of containerization would not be thoroughly developed until a century later,
after World War II.

Railway Traffic Survey

Traffic survey includes a detailed study of the traffic conditions in the area with a view to determine
the (a) most promising route for the railway in the area, (b) possible traffic the railway line will carry,
and (c) standard of railway line to be followed.

Reconnaissance Survey
A reconnaissance survey is the first engineeringsurvey which is carried out in territory
which has not been previously surveyed for the purpose of laying a new railway line.
The main objects ofreconnaissance survey are as follows: To obtain a general
knowledge of the whole territory and.

Railway Surveys
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using conventional survey techniques, it is necessary to employ a strict procedure for checking the
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