Slashdot Mirror
Marking 125 Years Since the Great Gauge Change
Arnold Reinhold writes "This month ends with the 125th anniversary of one of the most remarkable achievements in technology history. Over two days beginning Monday, May 31, 1886, the railroad network in the southern United States was converted from a five-foot gauge to one compatible with the slightly narrower gauge used in the US North, now know as standard gauge. The shift was meticulously planned and executed. It required one side of every track to be moved three inches closer to the other. All wheel sets had to be adjusted as well. Some minor track and rolling stock was sensibly deferred until later, but by Wednesday the South's 11,500 mile rail network was back in business and able to exchange rail cars with the North. Other countries are still struggling with incompatible rail gauges. Australia still has three. Most of Europe runs on standard gauge, but Russia uses essentially the same five foot gauge as the old South and Spain and Portugal use an even broader gauge. India has a multi-year Project Unigauge, aimed at converting its narrow gauge lines to the subcontinent's five foot six inch standard."
In the second half of the 19th century the US took rail transit very seriously. The standardization of the gauge isn't the only example of this. The US also spent a large amount of effort building the transcontinental railroad. A major reason for the success of the United States in the 20th century was the massive investment in infrastructure in the end of the 19th. Unfortunately, the US hasn't done much in the way of large scale infrastructural improvement since the building of the highway system in the 1950s. Our electric grid is primitive and outdated and our fastest passenger trains like the Acela high speed rail on the East Coast are slower than regular trains in other places like Japan (the maximum speed of the Acela is less than the average speed for some of the Japanese trains). I'm deeply worried about what the next few years are going to be like.
I'd like to know which country has an electric grid that makes the US grid look primitive.
I don't think it's so much that the US grid is primitive compared to other countries. Rather it is primitive compared with the available technology and projected needs. The monitoring and control equipment on much of the grid remains rather primitive, the wire infrastructure is fragile (major outages every time a serious storm blows through), many areas still depend on sending a person out to read the meter for billing, there is a too much interdependence without adequate safeguards, local generation (solar, wind, etc) remains problematic in many places, generation sources are relatively dirty, usage controls are primitive, etc. Most of our infrastructure was built decades ago and (IMO) too little was allocated for ongoing upgrades nor were the increases in demand adequately planned for.
The grid works but it's not nearly as robust, efficient or clean as it could be. That's the problem.
Maybe it's the piss poor domestic voltage (110V P-E) that necessitates using 2 phase supplies for domestic electric heating, the occasional domestic installations rated for 50 amps (5.5kW) and the un-earthed non-polarised plug / sockets? Or maybe it's just the yearly summer rolling blackouts?
Coming from a country where you can run a 3kW power-tool from a single phase domestic plug / socket combo, then when your done quickly boil water in an electric tea kettle to make a nice hot drink, and at the end of the day wash yourself clean in a 10kW electric shower I can say that the US domestic supply at least looks pretty fucking dismal.
On that train all graphite and glitter
Undersea by rail
Ninety minutes from New York to Paris
Well by seventy-six we'll be A.O.K.
Translation:
Oh my god, I can't stand ANYTHING about my country not being the best out of all the countries ever; I'd better come up with some excuse to get defensive and turn it into a bad thing about the other countries so mine is best again!
Yes, there are reasons Europe's grid is better. That doesn't mean it's not...better. The GP was arguing that it wasn't better.
Seriously, not everything is about your smug sense of nationalistic superiority. You didn't design the fucking grid; what's it to you anyway if somebody says it's bad? Fix it, or accept that it's bad but you're going to focus on other things. Don't pretend that it's a good thing because Hitler. Or some damn thing.
And by that time trains are obsolete already.
I really rather doubt trains are ever going to be obsolete, barring us figuring out cheap teleportation. There's simply no better method of moving stuff en masse across land.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time