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A light railway is a railway built at lower costs and to lower standards than typical "heavy rail": it uses lighter-weight track, and may have more steep gradients and tight curves to reduce civil engineering costs. These lighter standards allow lower costs of operation, at the price of lower vehicle capacity.
The precise meaning of the term "light railway" varies by geography and context.
In countries where a single standard gauge is dominant, the term light railway does not imply a narrow gauge railway. Most narrow gauge railways operate as light railways, but not all light railways need be narrow gauge. [i] After Spooner's development of steam haulage for narrow gauge railways, the prevailing view was that the gauge should be tailored according to the traffic: "The nearer the machine is apportioned to the work it has to do the cheaper will that work be done." [1]
From the 1890s, it was recognised that cost savings could also be made in the construction and operation of a standard gauge railway: "light axle-loads and low speeds, not gauge, are the first condition of cheap construction and economical working. Gauge is quite a secondary factor." [2] Break of gauge now became an important factor, and there was much concern over whether this would become an additional cost for the transshipment of goods, [3] or whether this was over-emphasised compared to the amount of warehousing and handling needed anyway. [4] The Irish railway system in particular became a good example of a broad gauge main line system with many independent narrow gauge, 3 ft (914 mm), light railway feeder branch lines.
In the United States, "light railway" generally refers to an urban or interurban rail system, which historically would correspond to a streetcar network. The distinct term light rail was introduced in the 1970s to describe a form of urban rail public transportation that has a lower capacity and lower speed than a heavy rail or metro system, but which generally operates in exclusive rights-of-way, in contrast with streetcar systems which operate in shared road traffic with automobiles. Urban sprawl combined with higher fuel prices has caused an increase in popularity of these light rail systems in recent decades.
In the United Kingdom "light railway" refers in its strictest sense to a railway built or operated under the Light Railways Act 1896 (59 & 60 Vict. c. 48). [5] That act, though, gives only a vague description; a better one is found from John Charles MacKay in the same year: [5] [6] "A light railway is one constructed with lighter rails and structures, running at a slower speed, with poorer accommodation for passengers and less facility for freight. It can be worked with less stringent standards of signalling and safety practice. It is a cheap railway and a second class of railway." [5] These terms are not pejorative, they simply recognise that the standards of main-line heavy railways are not needed in all situations. Their great advantage under UK law was that they avoided the need for an expensive act of Parliament before each new line; they only required a much simpler light railway order within the terms of the act. [5]
The term is also used more generally[ dubious – discuss ] of any lightly built railway with limited traffic, often controlled locally and running unusual or older rolling stock. A light railway is properly distinct from a tramway which operates under differing rules and may share a road. The term "light railway" is generally used in a positive manner.
Perhaps the most well-known caricature of a light railway is the film The Titfield Thunderbolt , made in 1953 as many of the light railways and other small branch lines were being closed. Despite the great public affection for these railways, very few were financially successful. Colonel H.F. Stephens was pivotal in the light railway world, and tried many techniques to make light railways pay, introducing some of the earliest railcars and also experimenting with a rail lorry built out of an old Model T Ford. Nevertheless, most light railways never made much money, and by the 1930s they were being driven out of business by the motor car. Although World War II resulted in a brief increase in the importance of these railways, very few lasted beyond the early 1950s. Those that survive today are generally heritage railways.
Queensland adopted a narrow gauge of 1,067 mm (3 ft 6 in) in order to make construction of lines lighter and thus cheaper, though this initiated a break-of-gauge with other states. The cost savings were due to light rails, low axleloads and low speeds as much as due to the gauge.
Tasmania, Western Australia and South Australia followed suit with the narrow gauge to reduce costs, though South Australia ended up with an inefficient two-gauge system which negated some of the supposed cost savings of the narrow gauge. New South Wales resisted calls to introduce narrow gauge, but did adopt pioneer lines with 30 kg/m (60.5 lb/yd) rails to reduce costs without the need for breaks-of-gauge.
There were a significant number of small and isolated mining and timber railway built to a variety of gauges and improvised standards.
There are still a large number of sugar cane tramways built to a common 610 mm (2 ft) gauge, and sharing research and development into advanced features such as concrete sleepers, tamping machines, remotely controlled brake vans, and the like. There is little through traffic with mainline railways so that break-of-gauge is not a problem.
The Iron Knob Railway was legally a "tramway", but operated 2,000-ton iron ore trams which were heavier than most railways.
Also in Japan, originally, "light railway" refers to a railway built or operated under the Light Railways Act enforced in 1909. The act in Japan also though gives only a vague description; the purpose of the act is for building railways easily with less stringent standards and at low cost.
The light railway concept in Japan is therefore similar to the UK and other countries. Many light railways were built for passengers or as military, industrial or forest railways in Japan, and in Japan's colonies in Taiwan, Korea, Manchuria, Sakhalin and Micronesia. Some light railways were destroyed during World War II, especially in Okinawa. By the 1970s, most light railways in Japan had been driven out of business by the motor car. Some of the remaining lines survive in passenger service, and others have been restored as heritage railways.
Taiwanese push car railways used handcars on 762mm gauge rails to transport sugarcanes of the Taiwan Sugar Corporation to the mainline railways of the Taiwan Railway Administration or the processing plants of the Taiwan Sugar Cooperation for further production to turn the sugarcane to fine sugar.
Many industrial railways were built to light railway standards. These may be of light and small construction, although the wagons carrying molten-steel in a steelworks can be several hundred tonnes in weight.
The Panama Canal construction used a heavy network of 5 ft (1,524 mm) temporary railways in its construction to move vast quantities of soil from the excavations to the dams that were constructed.
Light railways have been used in several wars, especially before the advent of the combustion engine and motor car. These have often connect depots some distance behind the front line with the front lines themselves. Some armies have Divisions of Engineers trained to operate trains. Sometimes they operate a branch line of their own so that they can practise track and bridge building (and demolition) without disturbing trains on the main line.
A narrow-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge narrower than 1,435 mmstandard gauge. Most narrow-gauge railways are between 600 mm and 1,067 mm.
A standard-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge of 1,435 mm. The standard gauge is also called Stephenson gauge, international gauge, UIC gauge, uniform gauge, normal gauge in Europe, and SGR in East Africa. It is the most widely used track gauge around the world, with about 55% of the lines in the world using it.
Light rail is a form of passenger urban rail transit that uses rolling stock derived from tram technology while also having some features from heavy rapid transit.
A broad-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge broader than the 1,435 mm used by standard-gauge railways.
In rail transport, track gauge is the distance between the two rails of a railway track. All vehicles on a rail network must have wheelsets that are compatible with the track gauge. Since many different track gauges exist worldwide, gauge differences often present a barrier to wider operation on railway networks.
The interurban is a type of electric railway, with tram-like electric self-propelled railcars which run within and between cities or towns. The term "interurban" is usually used in North America, with other terms used outside it. They were very prevalent in many parts of the world before the Second World War and were used primarily for passenger travel between cities and their surrounding suburban and rural communities. Interurban as a term encompassed the companies, their infrastructure, their cars that ran on the rails, and their service. In the United States, the early 1900s interurban was a valuable economic institution, when most roads between towns, many town streets were unpaved, and transportation and haulage was by horse-drawn carriages and carts.
In railway engineering, "gauge" is the transverse distance between the inner surfaces of the heads of two rails, which for the vast majority of railway lines is the number of rails in place. However, it is sometimes necessary for track to carry railway vehicles with wheels matched to two different gauges. Such track is described as dual gauge – achieved either by addition of a third rail, if it will fit, or by two additional rails. Dual-gauge tracks are more expensive to configure with signals and sidings, and to maintain, than two separate single-gauge tracks. It is therefore usual to build dual-gauge or other multi-gauge tracks only when necessitated by lack of space or when tracks of two different gauges meet in marshalling yards or passenger stations. Dual-gauge tracks are by far the most common configuration, but triple-gauge tracks have been built in some situations.
The National Company of Light Railways was a state-owned transportation provider which comprised a system of narrow-gauge tramways or local railways in Belgium, which covered the whole country, including the countryside, and had a greater route length than the mainline railway system. They were 1,000 mmmetre gauge and included electrified city lines and rural lines using steam locomotives and diesel railcars; half the system was electrified.
With railways, a break of gauge occurs where a line of one track gauge meets a line of a different gauge. Trains and rolling stock generally cannot run through without some form of conversion between gauges, leading to passengers having to change trains and freight requiring transloading or transshipping; this can add delays, costs, and inconvenience to travel on such a route.
There were more than a thousand British narrow-gauge railways ranging from large, historically significant common carriers to small, short-lived industrial railways. Many notable events in British railway history happened on narrow-gauge railways including the first use of steam locomotives, the first public railway and the first preserved railway.
The North Coast railway line (NCL) is a 1,681-kilometre (1,045 mi) 1067 mm gauge railway line in Queensland, Australia. It commences at Roma Street station, Brisbane, and largely parallels the Queensland coast to Cairns in Far North Queensland. The line is electrified between Brisbane and Rockhampton. Along the way, the 1680 km railway passes through the numerous towns and cities of eastern Queensland including Nambour, Bundaberg, Gladstone, Rockhampton, Mackay and Townsville. The line though the centre of Rockhampton runs down the middle of Denison Street.
Railways with a railway track gauge of 5 ft first appeared in the United Kingdom and the United States. This gauge became commonly known as "Russian gauge", because the government of the Russian Empire chose it in 1843. Former areas and states of the Empire have inherited this standard. However in 1970, Soviet Railways re-defined the gauge as 1,520 mm.
The rail network in Queensland, Australia, was the first in the world to adopt 1,067 mm narrow gauge for a main line, and, in 2013, was claimed to the second largest narrow gauge network in the world, consists of:
Rail transport in Australia involves a number of narrow-gauge railways. In some states they formed the core statewide network, but in the others they were either a few government branch lines, or privately owned and operated branch lines, often for mining, logging or industrial use.
The gauge for most of the China national railway network is standard gauge. Currently, in the national railway network, only the 1,000 mmmetre gauge Kunming–Haiphong railway uses narrow gauge. In addition, there are some industrial lines still using narrow gauge, mostly 2 ft 6 in narrow gauge or 600 mm narrow gauge. As of 2003, 600+ km narrow-gauge railways, 50000+ km standard gauge railways, and 9.4 km broad gauge railways were in use in mainland China.
Railway platform height is the built height – above top of rail (ATR) – of passenger platforms at stations. A connected term is train floor height, which refers to the ATR height of the floor of rail vehicles. Worldwide, there are many, frequently incompatible, standards for platform heights and train floor heights. Where raised platforms are in use, train widths must also be compatible, in order to avoid both large gaps between platforms and trains and mechanical interference liable to cause equipment damage.
The track gauge adopted by the mainline railways in Ireland is 1,600 mm. This unusually broad track gauge is otherwise found only in Australia, in the states of Victoria, southern New South Wales and South Australia, as well as in Brazil.
Originally, various track gauges were used in the United States. Some railways, primarily in the northeast, used standard gauge of 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in ; others used gauges ranging from 2 ft to 6 ft. As a general rule, southern railroads were built to one or another broad gauge, mostly 5 ft, while northern railroads that were not standard-gauge tended to be narrow-gauge. The Pacific Railroad Acts of 1863 specified standard gauge.
Asia has many narrow-gauge railways. The railways of Japan, Indonesia and the Philippines are predominantly 1,067 mm narrow gauge. Those in mainland Southeast Asia, which includes Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Myanmar and Malaysia, are predominantly metre gauge. The proposed ASEAN Railway would be standard or dual gauge, using metre- and standard-gauge regional railway networks and linking Singapore through Malaysia, Thailand, Laos and Vietnam to China's standard-gauge rail network. In Western Asia, Jordan uses 1,050 mm narrow gauge.
Numerous narrow-gauge railway lines were built in Oceania, most in 3 ft 6 in, 2 ft 6 in and 2 ft track gauge.