The Wester Pipe Railway is a narrow gauge railway that runs from Hastigrow on the B876 road to Westerloch on the A99, all within Caithness. [1] The line is double track for most of the route and uses Metre gauge. It is used to transport pipeline segments to the sea. It is the second northernmost railway in the United Kingdom with the first being the spur to Thurso on the Far North Line.
The line starts in Hastigrow and runs 7.8 kilometres (4.8 mi) east south east towards the coast where the depot of Subsea 7 is located. [2]
The railway is owned and operated by Subsea 7, who operate the railway and the pipelines around it to their port in Westerloch near Wick. The railway uses ocean-going tugs to operate it. Pipeline segments are combined at a site on the inland end of the railway and then towed to the sea, using the vessels. The individual pipes are often brought to Scotland by train as well. They are transported onto the railway by being taken to Georgemas Junction and then finish their journey to the Subsea 7 site by road. Entire pipelines are transported along the rail, giving it the record for the longest thing ever to be transported by rail: a 7.7-kilometre (4.8 mi) long pipe, only 100 metres (330 ft) shorter than the main section of railway itself. Many of the tracks were re-laid in 2014.
Four lines exist West of the bridge under the A99 road, however the main stem of the railway is just two tracks. This allows the sections to be completed concurrently, then joined together just before the road bridge. [3]
Transport in Tanzania includes road, rail, air and maritime networks. The road network is 86,472 kilometres (53,731 mi) long, of which 12,786 kilometres (7,945 mi) is classified as trunk road and 21,105 kilometres (13,114 mi) as regional road. The rail network consists of 3,682 kilometres (2,288 mi) of track. Commuter rail service is in Dar es Salaam only. There are 28 airports, with Julius Nyerere International being the largest and the busiest. Ferries connect Mainland Tanzania with the islands of Zanzibar. Several other ferries are active on the countries' rivers and lakes.
Tunisia has a number of international airports to service its sizable tourist trade. Tunis is the center of the transport system as the largest city having the largest port and a light transit system.
A heritage railway or heritage railroad is a railway operated as living history to re-create or preserve railway scenes of the past. Heritage railways are often old railway lines preserved in a state depicting a period in the history of rail transport.
The Swiss rail network is noteworthy for its density, its coordination between services, its integration with other modes of transport, timeliness and a thriving domestic and trans-alp freight system. This is made necessary by strong regulations on truck transport, and is enabled by properly coordinated intermodal logistics.
The Belgrave line is a commuter railway line in the city of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Operated by Metro Trains Melbourne, it is the city's fourth-longest metropolitan railway line at 41.8 kilometres (26.0 mi). The line runs from Flinders Street station in central Melbourne to Belgrave station in the east, serving 31 stations via Burnley, Box Hill, Ringwood, and Upper Ferntree Gully. Beyond Belgrave, the narrow-gauge line has been restored as the Puffing Billy Railway, which runs tourist services to the original terminus of Gembrook. The line operates for approximately 19 hours a day with 24 hour service available on Friday and Saturday nights. During peak hours, headways of up to 15 minutes are operated, with services every 20–30 minutes during off-peak hours. Trains on the Belgrave line run in a two three-car formations of X'Trapolis 100 trainsets.
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.
Rail transport in New Zealand is an integral part of New Zealand's transport network, with a nationwide network of 4,375.5 km (2,718.8 mi) of track linking most major cities in the North and South Islands, connected by inter-island rail and road ferries. Rail transport in New Zealand has a particular focus on bulk freight exports and imports, with 19 million net tonnes moved by rail annually, and 99.5% of New Zealand's exports and imports being transported through the country's seaports.
Rail transport in Australia is a component of the Australian transport system. It is to a large extent state-based, as each state largely has its own operations, with the interstate network being developed ever since Australia's federation in 1901. As of 2022, the Australian rail network consists of a total of 32,929 kilometres (20,461 mi) of track built to three major track gauges: 18,007 kilometres (11,189 mi) of standard gauge, 2,685 kilometres (1,668 mi) of broad gauge, and 11,914 kilometres (7,403 mi) of narrow gauge lines. Additionally, about 1,400 kilometres (870 mi) of 610 mm / 2 ft gauge lines support the sugar-cane industry. 3,488 kilometres (2,167 mi), around 11 per cent of the Australian heavy railways network route-kilometres are electrified.
The North Western Railway is one of 19 railway zones in India. It is headquartered at Jaipur, Rajasthan and has 59,075+ employees, 658+ stations and a route length of more than 5,761 kilometres (3,580 mi) across the states of Rajasthan, Gujarat, Punjab and Haryana. NWR operates international rail service Thar Express from Jodhpur to Karachi. This zone is the key enabler of the Delhi–Mumbai Industrial Corridor Project by virtue of running railways 1,500 km long Western Dedicated Freight Corridor.
The Brig–Zermatt railway line is a metre gauge railway line in the canton of Valais in Switzerland. Its 44-kilometre-long (27 mi) line links the communities of Brig and Visp in the Rhone Valley with Täsch and the car free holiday resort of Zermatt in the Mattertal. The line also forms part of the much travelled and admired route of the Glacier Express between St. Moritz and Zermatt. The Gornergratbahn is connected with the line at Zermatt.
A double-track railway usually involves running one track in each direction, compared to a single-track railway where trains in both directions share the same track.
The Chemins de Fer de Provence is a small rail company providing a daily train service between Nice and Digne-les-Bains in Provence. Their single remaining route, which dates from the 1890s and known locally as the Train des Pignes, is a metre-gauge railway, mostly single-track with passing loops at some stations. Between Pont-de-Gueydan and Saint-Sauveur-sur-Tinée the line runs through the valley of the Var. Most stops are upon request only and some do not have a built platform.
The rail network in Queensland, Australia, was the first in the world to adopt 1,067 mm narrow gauge for a main line, and now the second largest narrow gauge network in the world, consists of:
Rail transport in Greece has a history which began in 1869, with the completion of the then Athens & Piraeus Railway. From the 1880s to the 1920s, the majority of the network was built, reaching its heyday in 1940. From the 1950s onward, the railway system entered a period of decline, culminating in the service cuts of 2011. Ever since the 1990s, the network has been steadily modernized, but still remains smaller than its peak length. The operation of the Greek railway network is split between the Hellenic Railways Organisation (OSE), which owns and maintains the rail infrastructure; GAIAOSE, which owns the building infrastructure and the former OSE rolling stock, Hellenic Train; and other private companies that run the trains on the network. Greece is a member of the International Union of Railways (UIC). The UIC Country Code for Greece is 73.
The Waldenburg railway is a narrow-gauge light rail system in the canton of Basel-Landschaft, Switzerland. The 13.1-kilometre (8.1 mi) long single-track line runs from Liestal, the capital of the canton, to Waldenburg, with stops in Bubendorf, Hölstein, Niederdorf, and Oberdorf. It connects to SBB train services in Liestal railway station. The line was temporarily closed between April 2021 and December 2022 for modernisation and conversion to metre gauge.
The Howrah–New Jalpaiguri line is a railway line connecting Howrah with New Jalpaiguri in North Bengal in the Indian state of West Bengal. The line continues through North Bengal and western part of Assam to connect with Guwahati. The Naihati–Bandel link allows trains from another terminus Sealdah in Calcutta to use this route. The line uses a major part of the Barharwa–Azimganj–Katwa loop. Many trains use an alternative line between Howrah and New Farakka, via Bardhaman and Rampurhat. Other parts of West Bengal and Bihar are well-connected to this line. It is under the administrative jurisdiction of Eastern Railway and Northeast Frontier Railway.
The Katihar–Siliguri line is a railway line connecting Katihar in the Indian state of Bihar with Siliguri Junction in West Bengal, via Barsoi, Dalkhola, Kishanganj, Aluabari Road Junction, Thakurganj, Adhikari, Naxalbari, Bagdogra and Matigara. It was a metre-gauge track that was converted to 1,676 mm5 ft 6 in broad gauge in 2011.
Most narrow-gauge railways in Italy were built with Italian metre gauge, which is actually 950 mm because historically the Italian track gauge was defined from the centres of the rail instead of the internationally accepted method of measuring the gauge from the inside edges of the rails. Several metre-gauge lines were built in northern Italy.
Europe inherited a diversity of rail gauges. Extensive narrow-gauge railway networks exist in Spain, Central Europe and Southeastern Europe.
The South African Railways Dutton road-rail tractors of 1923 were road-rail steam tractors.