French narrow gauge in HOe?

[Stefan Krebs]

Dear Brian,

That's what is called 'bureaucratic blinkers' or 'ffr' (free from reality) in German, I said the Austrians (bureaucrats) decided to standardise 760mm to avoid compatibility, I didn't say that it worked.  ;D
Especially, during WW I, when the Austrians desperately needed supplies from Germany it caused some headache.  :laugh:

In a lot of cases you can adjust those 10mm by either moving the tyre on the wheel, or using a tyre with a relocated flange.

On that topic, if you see old pictures of the Mecklenburg Pommerschen Schmalspurbahnen (MPSB) you might see goods stock with an St Andrew's cross in a circle stencilled on the body, about 30 to 40 cm diameter. This symbol marked stock with extra wide tyres/ wheels.
The reason behind that is that if you connected your private siding to the MPSB in the same gauge (600mm) you'd be liable to an annual rate (dependant on the length of your private network). If your gauge was different you weren't 'connected, and no rate was due. Thus, a lot of farms, who operated extensive, but ever changing networks (sugar beet again  ;D) built their networks in 620mm gauge and acquired stock to 600mm gauge with wider rims; avoiding the expense of reloading at the interchange point.
As the GDR came into being the MPSB was nationalised, as were the farms (into Russian style Kolchoses). With the private owner markings vanishing off the farm stock they introduced the cross-in-circle marking to be able to identify which of the, otherwise often identical goods stock could go onto the former private owner track.
Engines did not operate on those private tracks until much later (and subsequent to re-gauging), those networks were muscle (animal and human) powered, with tractors only appearing post WW II.

A 'lose' fit is not a problem at slow speeds, provided the tyre is wide enough to prevent a drop between the rails; - which most German military narrow gauge equipment had to cater for track widening of the temporary battle lines, and to facilitate extreme gauge widening so that extremely tight radii could be deployed; and Aquarius C is a class HF 210 E 6, i.e. German military ordnance with nominal 210 PS (actually 240 PS), 5 axles, and 6t maximum axle load (28,2t gross + 12,5t tender). It is designed to operate down to 30m radius on 600mm (!!!) or 750/760mm, i.e. the wheels can be moved on the axle, and the brake gear rehung.

Your H0 model you order from Veith in either kit or ready-to-run form, who offers all variants except the ordnance version. Still got to weld up mine.  ;D
And I'd venture you can pass it off as 00 as it is BIG for a narrow gauge engine; just to bring us back to the original topic.  ;D



Cheers
Waldschrat

[Hobby]

(First, my name is not Brian so please don't address me as such, just use "Hobby"!)

You are right that adjusting the tyre would probably do the trick and with the Hf type locos they probably had wide tyres anyhow but as I said they tested the Saxon 750mm locos on the JHMD in 1941 so probably the 10mm wasn't too much of an issue!

Keith Chester in his book The Narrow Gauge Railwys of B-H" covers the gauge choice on pages 21 and 22 and concludes that there was no particular reason for the choice of 760mm but it might well have been influenced by some British 762mm (2ft 6ins) gauge stock used by British Contractors in the Monarchy in the late 1870s "rounded down". Once the choice was made, however, the Common Ministry of War instigated it's use to ensure that they could transfer stock around their Empire without having gauge issues. That they had a seat on the commissions for all railway construction in the Monarchy and had the right of veto probably ensured the universal use of 760mm gauge for the major lines in their Empire. I suspect from that the choice of 750mm by the Germans and Russians (amongst others) to be more co-incidence than any particular desire to make things incompatible. Something we will never know for certain, though.

[duttonbay]

.... 1067mm and 620mm 'scream' British Empire ....

1067mm is 3 ft 6 in - Cape Gauge. But 620mm is 24.4 inches. But instead of 620mm, do you perhaps mean 610mm? That is almost exactly 2-foot gauge.

[Stefan Krebs]

Dear All,

First my apologies to Hobby for mixing up names, a senior moment as they say.  :-[
...and to Brian too, of course.

If you look at the 760mm choice in the historical context, and you can read the German documents (yes, he who speaks foreign languages is at an advantage, even when it comes to model railways  ;D), you'll find that the choice of 760mm was on purpose to ensure there's no compatibility with the enemy. You're right, the standards, and the industry too, in those days were heavily influenced by the military. But why Keith thinks they adopted some British contractor's gauge is beyond me. For starters I would want to know who the contractor was, and then the equipment he used. 762mm can be found on the Upper Silesian industrial network, but also on the Broeltalbahn in the Siebengebirge near Bonn; neither of which was erected by British contractors, or had any British supplied equipment! In pre-metric days that measure was common and widespread way beyond the Austro-Hungarian sphere of influence! Whether that was coincidence or a result of the influence of the leader of the industrial revolution, i.e. Great Britain, I can not say, but the 762mm-gauge kicked around various Germanic countries way beyond some British contractor, and even before the industrial revolution.  :laugh:

It certainly was the other way round as the 750mm were standardised BEFORE the 760mm, i.e. the Austrians had the option to align or misalign, not the Germans or the Russians (who got most of their kit from Germany anyway). And yes, the Prussian military was heavily leaning onto the industry and the standardisation committees to minimise the number of gauges; - it makes requisitioning so much easier.  ;D
Of course the military in all German states could and did veto plans for railway lines. But not only that, they also had strategic lines build, and there was/ is a whole gaggle of those all over Germany. One of the most famous is the line across the 'Bridge of Remagen', which wasn't rebuilt after WW II as it had little economic value, only strategic.  :laugh:

As we are miles off-topic. but it appears there is an interest in some historic discussions, I offer to open a thread somewhere, where I'll post some historic German documents, e.g. reports on trials for visiting foreign commissions carried out on the Ffestiniog, when it was new; no, I don't expect you to learn German, translation will be provided.  :laugh:

Cheers
Waldschrat

[MickT]

As we are miles off-topic. but it appears there is an interest in some historic discussions, I offer to open a thread somewhere, where I'll post some historic German documents, e.g. reports on trials for visiting foreign commissions carried out on the Ffestiniog, when it was new; no, I don't expect you to learn German, translation will be provided.  :laugh:

Cheers
Waldschrat

Yes, please do that

[Stefan Krebs]

Okidoki, but it won't be tomorrow. I'll have to translate first.  ::)