WI: German WW2 5 foot rails?

perfectgeneral

perfectgeneral

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What if Hitler had been more a fan of trains than cars. Instead of autobahns he commissions more railway in the east and switches all gauge (and rolling stock) over to the Russian five foot track width. Some (re)welding of thick metal is required on the bogies. Help or hinder?

The four inch difference will not require new track beds or sleepers. It will aid trade with Russia and reduce that with France, etc.
 
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Cook

Cook

Banned
perfectgeneral said:
Help or hinder?
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Massive hindrance; Russia and Spain were the only two countries in mainland Europe whose gauge wasn’t the standard 4 ft. 8 ½ in. You’d have to convert the entire existing German rail network and rolling stock to the new width, the cost of doing so would be enormous, the associated disruption would be catastrophic, and the result would be a disruption of trade with all of Europe!
 

MattII

Why both with changing the rail network, just come up with a way of changing the axle gauge when you need to (there's only 85mm between Standard and Russian Gauge, or 89mm for Finland, which uses the older actual 5' gauge).
 

EAF602Whizz

Nice thinking Matt; modify the stock rather than uproot the entire infrastructure.

I have to say though that, given the history of the holocaust and associated crimes, anything that improves German efficiency on the Eastern front sends shivers down my spine :(.
 
Simon

Simon

Cook said:
You’d have to convert the entire existing German rail network and rolling stock to the new width, the cost of doing so would be enormous, the associated disruption would be catastrophic, and the result would be a disruption of trade with all of Europe!
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Would it be that disruptive? IIRC the Americans managed to re-gauge the whole of the South over something like a fortnight with most of the main routes being done over the first night/day or so. Granted Germany no doubt has a much denser rail network but I would expect them to also have much more resources and better planning staff. Still going to be a colossul pain in the arse to do though.

Edit: Just had a thought, what railway gauge did the various Eastern European countries use? There's no point Germany switching to the same as the Soviets if there's a belt of territory between them that uses something else, likely the old gauge, and causes a break of gauge defeating the whole purpose of things.
 
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Kevin C. Smith

Certainly, replacing wheels would be much more doable than re-gauging the rail network of Central Europe.

For rolling stock (passenger and freight) it is a simple matter of replacing the trucks (bogies). You'll need a buttload of them in supply to begin with, but you can salvage some parts from discarded standard gauge trucks to build additional 5 foot gauge ones (e.g., wheels can be reused, axels will probably be scrapped; side frames would be salvageable but bolsters not) after the initial conversions.

Locomotives are going to be the problem. Diesels, for practical purposes, simply do not exist (and the few that are around sure ain't goin' into no war zone!). Converting the gauge of a steam locomotive affects the frame, main & side rods, cylinders and valve gear. Designs could probably be prepared with an eye toward possible "quick" re-gauging but you will still need workshops with a lot of heavy equipment located near the frontier (and it will not be a quick process).

Loading gauges (clearances and weight) should not be a problem. If my impressions are correct, Russian clearances have always been larger than Germany's and I don't think that weight capacities were all that different.
 

MattII

EAF602Whizz said:
I have to say though that, given the history of the holocaust and associated crimes, anything that improves German efficiency on the Eastern front sends shivers down my spine :(.
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There's that, but OTOH, the more efficient the German rail network is, the further east the iron curtain falls.

Simon said:
Edit: Just had a thought, what railway gauge did the various Eastern European countries use? There's no point Germany switching to the same as the Soviets if there's a belt of territory between them that uses something else, likely the old gauge, and causes a break of gauge defeating the whole purpose of things.
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Ironically for this, Poland had been converted from Russian Gauge to Standard Gauge in WW1, by none other than the German Army.

Kevin C. Smith said:
For rolling stock (passenger and freight) it is a simple matter of replacing the trucks (bogies). You'll need a buttload of them in supply to begin with, but you can salvage some parts from discarded standard gauge trucks to build additional 5 foot gauge ones (e.g., wheels can be reused, axels will probably be scrapped; side frames would be salvageable but bolsters not) after the initial conversions.
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Seems overly-laborious considering that all you have to do is move each wheel in/out by 42/43mm.

Locomotives are going to be the problem. Diesels, for practical purposes, simply do not exist (and the few that are around sure ain't goin' into no war zone!). Converting the gauge of a steam locomotive affects the frame, main & side rods, cylinders and valve gear. Designs could probably be prepared with an eye toward possible "quick" re-gauging but you will still need workshops with a lot of heavy equipment located near the frontier (and it will not be a quick process).
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This might be an issue, although what if you were to have a set of 'German' Engines, and a set of 'Russian' ones, don't bother trying to double-gauge them, just the carriages.
 
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Devvy

Donor
Massive hindrance to the Germans, and potentially assists in a Russian counter-invasion.

Changing all the tracks won't be that difficult; the gauge is close enough to use the existing sleepers. Rolling stocks and engines will be far more difficult.

As mentioned, steam engines will have a ton of connecting equipment on the side to power the wheels which will need converting.

As for variable gauge wheels, the quality of track will play a part in this, which isn't great back then compared to today's continuously welded rail. The shaking and clackety-clack nature will play havoc with whatever holds the wheels at the correct gauge, and any small break will cause an immediate derailment with immediate knock-on effects. The easier you make it to switch the wheel gauge, the easier it will be to wear out and break.

For passengers at least, I'd wager it's be far easier to just get the passengers to cross from one train to another.
 

KACKO

In Poland and Eastern Slovakia there are specially designed stations for bogie change built after WW2. But there is more solutions for this problem. For example building railway stock with wheels for more then one gauge.
Problem of Steam engines was mentioned here, but actually it was done. Steam engines able to run on 5 ft and 4 ft 8 1/2inch tracks were built.

Of course this would request planning years ahead. Anyway, it would be much cheaper then re gauging whole German railway system. Plus, after conquering rest of the Europe, problem wouldn't be solved. It would be actually even wider. From Czechoslovakia and Poland, to Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia and Italy. How would Germans transport efficient amounts of Oil from Romanian oilfields?
 
Michel Van

Michel Van

yes Hitler was fun of trains, but he wanted the Breitspurbahn.
but that is not 5 ft, but a 9 ft 10 1⁄8 inch broad-gauge railway!
what you expected from a Megalomaniac ?

rrvpOyV.jpg
 

MattII

KACKO said:
In Poland and Eastern Slovakia there are specially designed stations for bogie change built after WW2. But there is more solutions for this problem. For example building railway stock with wheels for more then one gauge.
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This, totally didn't occur to me, are you talking about doubling up the wheels on all the carriages?

Problem of Steam engines was mentioned here, but actually it was done. Steam engines able to run on 5 ft and 4 ft 8 1/2inch tracks were built.
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Was that also done by doubling up the wheels, or a much more complicated system?
 

AMF

perfectgeneral, I think you have got it exactly backwards. In a thread on improving German WW II logistics, I wrote the following suggestion:
AMF said:
Convert all captured rail lines to standard gauge from the beginning of Barbarossa:
At the beginning of Barbarossa, there were orders to convert only one track of dual-track lines. This made it necessary to build passing-loops for both gauges, an effort that would not have been neccessary if all tracks had been converted from the start. A few month later, there was an order to convert all tracks, but only to certain line, East of this line the Russian gauge was to be retained. This also caused a lot of unneccessary effort, because now ramps had to be built, where the freight could be re-loaded from a standard gauge to a Russian gauge train. Finally, there was the order to convert all captured lines to the standard gauge. It probably would have made the transport situation a little less difficult if this order had been given right from the start.
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So it's exactly the other way round, converting more Soviet gauge lines to the standard gauge earlier would have eased German logistics somewhat.
 

MattII

I think they tried that didn't they? Wasn't one of the issues that they couldn't do it fast enough to be practical?
 

Nietzsche

Banned
Michel Van said:
yes Hitler was fun of trains, but he wanted the Breitspurbahn.
but that is not 5 ft, but a 9 ft 10 1⁄8 inch broad-gauge railway!
what you expected from a Megalomaniac ?
Click to expand...
Goering, looking upon these plans: those are great, but, where are the people going to sit?

There was silence for a moment.


"Herr Reischsmarshal, they're right there...- he say, timidly pointing at one o the many rail cars.

"You must be mistaken. Those are my bacon cars."
 

Carl Schwamberger

Getting back to the OP it sounds more efficient to plan ahead and have a better organization for restoring the Eastern railroads. I dont have the numbers at hand to calculate this, but I wonder how much it would help if the ability of the railway repair/operation organization was double its actual 1941 ability in restoring the Soviet railways?
 
perfectgeneral

perfectgeneral

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Monthly Donor
Yeah, this would be the way to go. Maybe even pre-production of new rails enough to furnish repairs and double up or spur off track where the opportunity can be identified as advantageous. The rail network is the only way to move any distance in most weather they will encounter.

I was not thinking in terms of an enhanced effect holocaust. Indeed any 'Germans succeed in Russia' TL needs a regime change by 1941 just to recover good taste. Is there any chance that enhancing the rail network and rolling stock instead of building autobahns would butterfly away the Nazis?
 
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