What is your (most) valuable "made it myself" PART! and most valuable lesson learned about Z-cars!

[dutchzcarguy]

19 hours ago, Namerow said:

Railways in North America were tied to a track gauge system measured in feet and inches (4 ft. 7-1/8", IIRC)

We have in the Netherlands 4 ft 8 1/2 inches or as we say: 1435 mm.   This is the most used all over the world and i think you meand this as well?

In dutch..  (Interesting .. there are many width's in tracks..  (the old russian is also meantioned.. i heard that the Ukraine had those and that's why they can't send weed over to polen because of the width of the tracks that are different ..  )

Lijst van spoorwijdten - Wikipedia

[Namerow]

4 hours ago, dutchzcarguy said:

We have in the Netherlands 4 ft 8 1/2 inches or as we say: 1435 mm.   This is the most used all over the world and i think you meand this as well?

I 'misremembered' on that rail gauge.  It was actually was 4 ft. 10-7/8 in. and it applies to the trackage used for the Toronto streetcar and subway systems.  Otherwise, our Canadian mainline railways use the more common 4 ft. 8-1/2 in. (because to do otherwise would mean that our trains wouldn't be able to enter the USA and U.S. trains wouldn't be able to enter Canada).

Here's how the so-called 'Toronto gauge' came to be:

The Toronto Street Railway created the basis for the Toronto streetcar system when it opened a horsecar line in 1861. At the time, the city's streets were unpaved.  A broader-than-standard 'Toronto gauge' was mandated by the city in order to allow not just horse-drawn passenger carriages ('streetcars'), but also both horse-drawn cargo wagons to use the tracks.  The rail used for these horsecar tracks was a 'step' type.  The horse-drawn streetcars were equipped with iron wheels with inboard flanges.  They ran on the outer (upper) step of the rail, with the wheel flanges providing guidance.   The horse-drawn cargo wagons, on the other hand, used wheels made of wood, with a flat iron tread and no flange. These cargo wagons used the inner (lower) step of the rail, with the upper step of the rail serving to guide the wagon along the track. In order to accommodate this arrangement, the track gauge had to be 4 feet, 11 inches*.  When the TSR's franchise ended in 1891, a new company (the Toronto Railway Company) took over the system and replaced horse-drawn streetcars with electric trams.  Rather than rip up all of the existing trackage, it continued the use of Toronto gauge and had its electric trams' equipped with axles whose wheel separations were set for the Toronto gauge.  When the subway system was built in the 1950's, the transit commission decided to extent the use of the Toronto gauge to the new system (probably so that it could use common storage yards and service depots for the streetcars and the new subway vehicles).

(* later reduced by 1/8" for some reason I haven't been able to determine)

Toronto wasn't at all unique in having a horse-drawn streetcar system.  However, I think the the 'Toronto gauge' was (and remains) unique to the city -- as did our streetcar system for many years (at least, in Canada and the US).  Just about everywhere else, the municipal transit authorities replaced streetcars with buses in the 1950's and ripped up their streetcar tracks.  Although some claim this was a conspiracy on the part of the U.S. auto industry (sell more cars and buses) and the oil companies (sell more fuel), there were lots of good reasons:  1) The streetcars impeded the flow of automobile traffic; 2) the tracks were tough on vehicles equipped with bias-ply tires (not to mention motorcycles and bicycles); 2) no overhead electrical wiring needed;  3) new routes could be created without the need to tear up pavement and install tracks and overhead wiring;  4) no track or electrical systems to maintain; 5) buses could change direction and cross each other's paths without the need for track/wire switches or crossovers.  Streetcars really work best when they operate on a dedicated right-of-way (typically, a centre strip running down the middle of the road).  However, that requires either a very wide street or the sacrificing of a pavement lane.  And there's still that unsightly business of putting up an overhead power wire system.  Some people love streetcars.  Others hate them.

[Jeff Berk]

I think we are drifting off topic but good reading in any event.

[dutchzcarguy]

Hihi, yeah.. I would have changed the topic (again!) but it's no longer possible! 🤣 

Who knew that there were so many different track width's?