Southern rail service from Hua Hin to receive major facelift

[oakdale160]

Just googled to find why standard gauge is 4ft 8+ inches, and its because that was the gauge for Roman war charriots

[dtaai-maai]

^^ I'm assuming you're kidding. It's a romantic notion, but even Wiki only gives it 'legend' status. And if you think about it, the idea that Stephenson would be looking around for inspiration from (inaccurate) Roman military history doesn't really pass muster.

http://www.discoverlivesteam.com/magazine/34/34.html

[hhfarang]

According to Snopes.com it was due to the width of English "chairots", not Roman. It was made the width of most of the horse drawn wagons of the time due to "resistance to change" and possibly so that previously horse drawn conveyances could actually be connected to a train and pulled. While I doubt this practice never became commonplace, it was evidently tried a few times (see painting in Snopes article of stage coaches being hooked up to a locomotive).

http://www.snopes.com/history/american/gauge.asp

The first American steam locomotive was purchased from an English company so rail guage had to be the same. England was a bit ahead of America in railroad building and the two countries shared the technology and parts as building progressed in both places.

Rail history:

http://www.railserve.com/stats_records/ ... irsts.html

[oakdale160]

One meter works for Malaysia. Who wants to go faster than 160 kph anyway?

In order to make train travel an attractive option to flying, the railways have sought an average speed, that includes times for stops, of over 200k/hour, at these speeds for journeys under 500k the train is competitive ---you can arrive at the station 10 mins before departure.

[TheBludger]

You need wider tracks for faster trains. It is a stability thing.
The French TGV is the width mentioned in earlier comments. 1,435 mm (4 ft 8 1⁄2 in)
Compare Cambodia with 1000mm, their trains cannot travel fast at all.
It would be nice to have less derailments.

[oakdale160]

The latest announcement about improving the train service is that emphasis is to be placed on an improved double track system and the High SpeedTrain project de- emphasised. One would imagine that trains running on the new double tracks would be a good deal faster than the present ones. Maybe not bkk to HH in less than an hour and a half, that the HST could deliver. But maybe two hours. Anybody seen any info on what speeds are planned.

[uncle tom]

The latest announcement about improving the train service is that emphasis is to be placed on an improved double track system and the High SpeedTrain project de- emphasised. One would imagine that trains running on the new double tracks would be a good deal faster than the present ones. Maybe not bkk to HH in less than an hour and a half, that the HST could deliver. But maybe two hours. Anybody seen any info on what speeds are planned.

That is probably good news for HH, as the disruption caused by an HS project would be considerable.

However, if they upgrade, they might want to tackle some of the gradient issues on the existing line - the locos really struggle when heading south out of town..

[oakdale160]

Its all very interesting, I need more details about the planned services so I can tell my grandchildren what to expect.

[hhinner]

Your grandchildren can probably expect plans for double tracking to be well advanced. Possibly new rolling stock could be under consideration.