No it was a 3m wide railway, complete madness. Breitspurbahn - WikipediaI suspect it does go far back, before the locomotive and the steam engine. The legally required width for a road established within the medieval Holy Roman Empire and its neighboring polities was about 3 meters, a 'lances width' .
Hellweg - Wikipedia
The goal was for the roads to be wide enough for two carts or coaches to pass by each other.
Not all roads by any means had to have such a width but these were all the big protected roads that the princes and Free Cities maintained peaceful travel by force if travellers, especially merchants, were molested on them. They appointed a Justice of the Peace of the roads and sent out little armies to arrest and punish anybody that molested those using these roads. These included the regional and local salt roads & trade routes like the Amber Road and of course the major thoroughfares like the Via Reggie and Via Imperia.
Via Regia - Wikipedia
![File:Via_Imperii_und_Via_Regia.png[img]](/forum/proxy.php?image=https%3A%2F%2Fen.m.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FFile%3AVia_Imperii_und_Via_Regia.png%5Bimg%5D&hash=c777742d2a07bfb2b804630bf94a4fe5)
Qualities that made for a great aircraft that don't show up in performance stats.
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My point is the 3 meter wide guideline goes back many centuries.
No it doesn't, the meter as a measure dates to Napoleon, to try to construct a modern railway on a 3 meter gauge is madness, especially on the scale that was planned. The tunnels curves and marshalling yards would be huge. Standard gauge was actually 4ft 8in, they added a half inch just to allow curves and smooth running straight away. A 3m wide railway is a fantasy, possibly useful on a steel plant but of no use at all cross country.
Yes it does - the distance is the same no matter how you measure it. 3 meters is still 3 meters even if you measure in feet or ells or any other way.
The Nazi fantasies and delusions are layered on top of a much older culture which long predated the German State in any form (or Napoleon)
Oh for crying out loud, I was born and raised in Stockton on Tees, the first passenger railway terminated within a few hundred yards of where I was born. Whatever some ancient mystic thought about things they never had anything to do with putting and operating rolling stock on a track. You need to explore the mathematics of it, I am certainly not going to stat teaching you.
Shortround6
Major General
Well, it is certainly easier to move planes by train if the tunnels and bridges are bigger.
swampyankee
Chief Master Sergeant
- 3,977
- Jun 25, 2013
I think you may be conflating the width of a road with the distance between the wheels. For a train, the distance between the wheels -- the track gauge -- is about half the width of the locomotives and cars. See, for example, A Word on Loading Gauges.. Hitler's 3-meter track gauge railroad would have a loading gauge large enough to permit 6-meter wide, 7-meter high cars and locomotives.
The 747 fuselage was constructed of pieces limited in size to ones that could be transported from California to Paine Field in Washington by rail. By comparison the mostly composite 787 comes in rather large modules. The wings for instance are produced by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in Nagoya, in one piece. They fit as a pair in the cargo area of the 747-Dreamlifter. We would also go to Taranto Italy for some fuselage sections as well as shuffling bits and pieces around the lower 48.
Obviously transport of assemblies from sub contractors can assume some importance. The Germans due to the bombing campaign dispersed much of their aircraft manufacture. In Nagoya, the Japanese moved Zero-sen's for final assembly from the factory (not near the airfield) through the narrow streets via horse drawn cart.
All these considerations go into the design of an aircraft. Production ease, ease of repair, security of the plant all reflect on a plane's numbers and service reliability percentages.
Obviously transport of assemblies from sub contractors can assume some importance. The Germans due to the bombing campaign dispersed much of their aircraft manufacture. In Nagoya, the Japanese moved Zero-sen's for final assembly from the factory (not near the airfield) through the narrow streets via horse drawn cart.
All these considerations go into the design of an aircraft. Production ease, ease of repair, security of the plant all reflect on a plane's numbers and service reliability percentages.
No I was discussing the concept. as you state you have 6 meter wide cars and 7 meters high. They are absolutely enormous. But they still just have two rails of track to take the weight, the loco that pulls it is similarly enormous. As the gauge increases and the weight increases how do you support the weight? More wheels. closer wheels? As the gauge increases its ability to make a turn becomes less and less. It is the flanges that take the force of a turn to change direction, as you state the rolling stock would be 6m wide and 7m high. We havnt even discussed the bridges and tunnels needed for these monsters.
Or maybe more to the point, "Could a 3 meter gauge railway (or an SR71 bizjet) be economically practical?"
Cheers,
Wes
I was ten years old growing up in a rural state famed for its narrow, steep, twisty roads when the first plans for the Interstate Highway System were published, and we had the same concerns.
Busses carried 36 pax max, tractor trailers were single drive axle, single trailer axle, the longest trailers were 36 feet, and sleeper cabs were unheard of. Detroit cars were just starting to grow, "I love 57 Chevies, I think they do it up right!" Old Angie Barofio, my dad's mechanic, would roll over in his grave if he saw the monsters that prowl the Interstate today.
Cheers,
Wes
Someone is thinking that this is commercially feasible
so a SR71 Bizjet seems a very reasonable idea...
Shortround6
Major General
difference is that while the length and height of modern trucks/busses have increased the width has not (at least not much) anybody want to see that rural 2 lane (or 1 1/2 lane) steep. twisty road rebuilt to take 20-24 foot wide tractor trailers, even if short?
Even in California once you get up into the hills (not mountains) of the old gold country the length of trailers or the over all length of the rig is still restricted due to the sharp turns and trailer dump trucks are prefered to tri-axle dump trucks.
Yup. Brother in law lived in Sutter Creek, and the roads around there reminded me of home, though the scenery was mighty different. They moved to Texas a year before that neighborhood was ravaged by a wildfire.
Cheers,
Wes
There are all sorts of things that conspire against it. As the gauge increases the curves must be more gentle. The wagons must be longer and have more wheels to take the weight, the loco must be bigger and produce more power but that gets harder to transmit and though the weight may increase by two to our times you still only have two rails so how wide can the rail be made? The whole thing would be much more than twice the weight per meter which means when it crosses a bridge you have a massive asymmetric load all on one side and then all on the other.
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