Railway tracks don't look that wide so how can trains be so large inside?

Question

Has anyone else noticed this. Railway tracks are perhaps a metre or so wide. However, the inside of trains, which appears, from the outside at least, not much wider than the tracks, has a (semi-comfortable) bearth of 5 people and a corridor. What is going on?

Answer 1

Standard guage Railway lines are 1435 mm apart. That's quite a bit more than a metre.

In old money that was 4 feet 8.5 inches between the inside edges of the rails, or about 5 feet overall. The typical passenger carriange is 9 feet 3 inches wide overall so you can see that the overhang is 2 feet 1.5 inches each side. That's not very much of an overhang but it's enough to give you the width of which you speak.

Good suspension design helps to reduce the 'wobble' to un-noticeable levels so you don't spill your coffee (normally).

The original Great Western Railway was built from Bristol to London with a track guage of 7 feet and the carriages were up to 11 feet wide. That's a lesser overhang than we now have (proportionately). Apparently the quality of the ride was very good.

If we had that track guage these days with modern rolling stock and suspension you'd have silky smooth travel at over 150mph on almost all main lines.

Answer 2

The rails and wheels are the same distance apart. The train itself is wider than the train tracks - like this: Train> Rails
Leaving room for 5 people and a corridor. Look at the wheels on the train the next time you see one.

Answer 3

All standard gauage track within the Uk is 4ft 8inches, the gap between the track and next track is 3ft 3inches a small gap of 1 ft is the standard between trains, therefore a standard carrage would be roughly 7ft from outer skin to outer skin, on the old Mk1 slam door stock could quite easily stretch out on the bulkhead sofa seats and still have the bulkhead door free and I am 6ft 1in long.

Answer 4

The 'standard' gauge for railway tracks is 4ft 8& 1/2ins. Within this gauge there are many different sizes of trains, the track width not being that much of a constraint. For example, have a look at this page (picked at random) of the UK's 'Flying Scotsman' loco:- http://www.nrm.org.uk/flyingscotsman/gallery.asp
and compare it with these pictures of UP's 'Big Boy':-
http://www.uphs.org/4023move1.html
One loco must be twice the size of the other, yet both run on the same width tracks.
Then look at this page:-
http://www.societies.cam.ac.uk/curc/eagle/61/sa.htm
which contains pictures of South African Railways which run to a gauge of 3'6'' - and yet the locos look bigger than the UK one!

The constraint on the size of locos, rolling stock etc., is not so much the width of the tracks, but infrastructure like height of bridges, width of tunnel bores, platforms, clearance between adjacent tracks, etc. Clearly, there becomes a point at which the width of track becomes an issue - one can hardly imagine Big Boy, or Flying Scotsman even, running on the 2' gauge referred to on the South African site I quoted.

Answer 5

Tracks aren't a meter wide, they're about 5 feet (1.5m) apart.

(before you flame me and say they're 56.5" or 1435mm, you're talking about inside against inside and I'm talking about center to center. I own and have calibrated a hy-rail truck, so I'm pretty sure I know what I'm talking about.)

The reason it works is that the center of gravity of trains, especially passenger trains, is quite low. Even on a hulking Amtrak Superliner, the center of gravity is only a few feet above the railhead, due to the considerable weight of the wheel-sets.

Answer 6

It started with the Roman's, they made all cart and wagen the same with so they would travel in the same ruts in the road.
The British copy this and America uses the same standard.
When the first train was build it use the same width as wagon, 56 1/2"
FRA regulation said track gage should be from 56"min. to 57 1/2" max.

Answer 7

Have a closer look. Rail tracks are conventionally 1.435 metres apart, but the carriages overhang the wheels substantially each side.

Answer 8

I'd go and ask 'The Signalman',that Arnold Ridley(Godfrey in Dads Army) wrote about.

Answer 9

Purely out of interest.. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isambard_Kingdom_Brunel#The_Great_Western_Railway ... In England, Brunel at some point proposed a much wider guage of about 7'. Unfortunately the narrow guage had already just about become standard and so that one took off.

If we worked with the 7' guage.. things would be much better.

D'ohhhhhhhhhhh

Answer 10

itz all abt focussing of train tracks