Sir John Valentine Carden Survives. Part 2.

To be transshipped at the break of gauge at the Victorian border.

At this time Australia was heavily dependent on coastal shipping and coastal cargos on all stops ships. Australia’s highways were an interesting fourth alternative and the railways were state economic affairs designed largely to haul cargo to dock.

I’m not even sure if the Grant will make the loading gauge to Sydney.

Ah, the battle of the gauges. The joys of Railways started when the states were individual self-governing colonies, and where efforts to standardise systems have been limited to say the least.

- NSW is Standard Gauge
- Victoria is a combination of Broad and Standard Gauge (interstate lines are Standard, intrastate are broad gauge). Break of gauge for interstate lines to NSW was not removed until 1960's.
- Queensland is Narrow gauge except for the main line section from the NSW border to Brisbane.
- South Australia has at various points had combinations on Narrow, Standard and Broad. no idea what they have now. Interstate lines were built at standard gauge and in operation by WW2.
- WA was mostly Narrow gauge at the time, there was a break of gauge on the line heading from SA (I think at Kalgoorlie??). Currently still a combination of Narrow and Standard.

Kind of sad that even to this day the system is a mix of at least 3 different gauges, not even counting light rail/trams.
 
I am guessing at this point the latest batches of Matildas are very reliable and, having played important roles in both the deserts of North Africa and now SEA, have additional ventilation or other cooling apparatuses for both the engine and the crew?

Are the MGs taken off the yank tanks going onto the Jumbucks, after a bit of armouring-up?
 
I am guessing at this point the latest batches of Matildas are very reliable and, having played important roles in both the deserts of North Africa and now SEA, have additional ventilation or other cooling apparatuses for both the engine and the crew?

Are the MGs taken off the yank tanks going onto the Jumbucks, after a bit of armouring-up?
How hard is it to make or adapt a tripod for those machineguns...., (Not, take a look at the proces in an more modern conflict
)
 
I don't recall the Matildas doing anything much in NA, they move too slow.
Like the mills of God they are slow but grind exceedingly fine. Ask the Italians how easy it was to stop them in Operation Compass.

Now, the besetting sin of British armoured units in 1941-2 was charging onto lines of anti-tank guns. Even then, the Germans needed the "88mm" to get kills at long range.

The Japanese will largely be sitting ducks.
 
Like the mills of God they are slow but grind exceedingly fine. Ask the Italians how easy it was to stop them in Operation Compass.

Now, the besetting sin of British armoured units in 1941-2 was charging onto lines of anti-tank guns. Even then, the Germans needed the "88mm" to get kills at long range.

The Japanese will largely be sitting ducks.
Except that the North African campaign was carried on the backs of Valiants ITTL, not Matildas.
 
Ah, the battle of the gauges. The joys of Railways started when the states were individual self-governing colonies, and where efforts to standardise systems have been limited to say the least.

- NSW is Standard Gauge
- Victoria is a combination of Broad and Standard Gauge (interstate lines are Standard, intrastate are broad gauge). Break of gauge for interstate lines to NSW was not removed until 1960's.
- Queensland is Narrow gauge except for the main line section from the NSW border to Brisbane.
- South Australia has at various points had combinations on Narrow, Standard and Broad. no idea what they have now. Interstate lines were built at standard gauge and in operation by WW2.
- WA was mostly Narrow gauge at the time, there was a break of gauge on the line heading from SA (I think at Kalgoorlie??). Currently still a combination of Narrow and Standard.
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Kind of sad that even to this day the system is a mix of at least 3 different gauges, not even counting light rail/trams.
All the states have a great deal of legacy linage of railways in existence. South Australia has all three gauges, although narrow gauge is limited to basically heritage lines. WA is basically standard gauge. Queensland is a mix of standard and narrow gauges. In WWII Australia led the world had transferring the gauges on carriages. They would basically lift up the carriages and remove the bogies and replace them with the appropriate sized ones for the journeys ahead. The key places where change of gauge occurred were Albury-Wadonga, Port Augusta, Broken Hill, Kalgoorlie and some where up on the Queensland border.
 
Perhaps Britain ITTL with realise how much of a drag having multiple gauges is, and encourage them (perhaps with generous loans on offer) to start converting to a single gauge?
 
Perhaps Britain ITTL with realise how much of a drag having multiple gauges is, and encourage them (perhaps with generous loans on offer) to start converting to a single gauge?
Economics is the reason why they had multiple gauges. The tended to start with Standard Gauge and went to Narrow Gauge in the most part because you could have twice the track with the same number of sleepers. South Australia was unusual, being under the influence of an Irish chief engineer who believed in the virtue of Broad Gauge.
 
Operation COMPASS against the Italians in North African were heavily reliant on the Matilda for success.
Not ITTL. A few Matilda Is showed up, but no Matilda IIs from what I can tell.

Economics is the reason why they had multiple gauges. The tended to start with Standard Gauge and went to Narrow Gauge in the most part because you could have twice the track with the same number of sleepers. South Australia was unusual, being under the influence of an Irish chief engineer who believed in the virtue of Broad Gauge.
'Narrow' in this case being 3' 6" gauge, so only a hair under 3/4 the width of Standard gauge.
 
...because you could have twice the track with the same number of sleepers...
Genuine question here out of curiosity/ignorance: How the heck does that work?
I'm guessing it has something to do with physics but it's been ages since I had anything to do with force per unit area back in school, and the main thing I remember is the picture with an elephant strolling across an arctic ice-sheet whilst a human in high-heel shoes goes through...
 
Genuine question here out of curiosity/ignorance: How the heck does that work?
I'm guessing it has something to do with physics but it's been ages since I had anything to do with force per unit area back in school, and the main thing I remember is the picture with an elephant strolling across an arctic ice-sheet whilst a human in high-heel shoes goes through...
Good question. My GUESS is you need just as many ties/sleepers, but they're shorter and possibly thinner so you need less wood.
 
Genuine question here out of curiosity/ignorance: How the heck does that work?
I'm guessing it has something to do with physics but it's been ages since I had anything to do with force per unit area back in school, and the main thing I remember is the picture with an elephant strolling across an arctic ice-sheet whilst a human in high-heel shoes goes through...
It is pure economics, nothing to do with "force per unit". It all depends on how many sleepers your track is carried by. Narrow Gauge is half the width of Standard Gauge, so it costs less money to build because you can cut your sleepers half as wide.
 
It is pure economics, nothing to do with "force per unit". It all depends on how many sleepers your track is carried by. Narrow Gauge is half the width of Standard Gauge, so it costs less money to build because you can cut your sleepers half as wide.
It doesn't work like that, you also have to account for loading gauge, which makes it next to impossible, unless you compare, say, Bosnian Gauge to Iberian Gauge.
 
It doesn't work like that, you also have to account for loading gauge, which makes it next to impossible, unless you compare, say, Bosnian Gauge to Iberian Gauge.
All depends if you are counting twin gauges, laid side by side. Australia has plenty of empty space, you realise?
 
All depends if you are counting twin gauges, laid side by side. Australia has plenty of empty space, you realise?
The biggest advantage of narrow gauge that it could use smaller radiuses on the curves ( aka turning circle of an mini cooper vs. ford f-150), meaning that it needed less bridges, tunnels etc. to reach the destination.
 
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