Japan's Narrow Gauge Railway Story

[@s762official]

because everyone mentions the whole acela comment: the acela express (and most every other train on amtrak's northeast corridor) has a fairly high top speed similar to other high speed trains, but is also hampered significantly by old, old infrastructure. at several points in it's journey from boston to washington, DC the acela has to slow down to under 50kph for bridges built as early as the 1920's and 30's, as well as significant traffic and some curves that remain tight to this day (hard to develop new rail infrastructure with communities built along the line for a century or more). it's probably a stretch of a statement, but i've looked up some of the facts since: -the acela's entire route is 735km (457 mi) -for only 54.6km (33.9 mi) the acela can run at it's top operating speed (mostly between new york penn and washington DC) -the acela's AVERAGE speed through it's entire route from boston-DC is 113.1km/h (70.3mph) the whole narita express doing 130kph/acela at 130mph is NOT a confusion between imperial and metric lol. unfortunately the N'EX's average speed statistics aren't out there, i'm sure someone can calculate it based on operation times. it's probably still slower than the acela but remember it has to do a much shorter distance with a much newer route. it certainly was fast when i rode it, with very few slow sections. when i get around to doing other parts of this series (stay tuned), yeah, i'll take it easier on the stretch claims to at least appease the foamers (i am aware that there are a lot of standard gauge rail lines in tokyo no less the whole of japan that are private, non HST railways (keikyu railway being an obvious example). obviously people on youtube love to complain about every detail. but the point remains of japan's british railway origins and the uniqueness of it's common gauges.

[@melanierhianna]

Narrow gauge isn’t just a frontier rail gauge. It’s also useful when geography makes standard gauge more difficult. Look at Switzerland’s metre gauge for example…

[@seanmaxwell3319]

Damn this was a good video! As a Tokyo resident myself and having an interest in trains on and off since childhood, I’ve noticed just how narrow the tracks look as opposed to the train cars themselves. The various train gauges you can see around Tokyo tells a story of how their train systems grew and developed. For instance, the former Kokutetsu and The Tokyu lines exclusively run on narrow gauge track, however the independent Keisei and Keikyu railways run on standard gauge and are famous for their speed and stability. Keio, which is a major private railway runs on scotch gauge. Usually seen under trams. This is because the Keio lines were originally tram lines running between central Tokyo and (now developed) rural countrysides. Thanks again for making this video! It’s nice to listen to a perspective other than some tetsuota lol

[@Lodai974]

Keio use 1372mm and 1067mm. the narrow gauge has the disadvantage of limiting the commercial speed (especially in curves), and with wide train (2.95m for the Japanese standard gauge), this limit even more the speed (center of gravity). This is one of the reasons why all the electrical system and other devices are under the body and not on the roof ... to lower the center of gravity and increase stability. the standard gauge has fewer problems of this type, but costs more per km.

[@lzh4950]

@@Lodai974 3:24 Actually locomotive size doesn't necessarily have to depend on the track gauge I think - Japan's loading gauge is actually about the same as that in the UK (~2.8-2.95m width) though the latter uses standard gauge instead, so I can't see a lot of cost savings with narrow track gauge here. On the flip side I've rode on Japanese rolling stock & felt they have a greater tendency to roll probably because narrower track gauges offer less stability. An advantage of narrow gauge though I guess is that sharper curves can be negotiated (which I imagine is important for limiting tunneling costs due to Japan's rugged terrain - hence some routes are quite winding I think e.g. Nagasaki Line) due to less wheel slippage arising from smaller difference in distance travelled by the outer & inner wheels around a bend when the track gauge is smaller

[@IamTheHolypumpkin]

Thanks for the informative video. I knew Japan has narrow gauge, but I never knew why. I think the frontier railroads in the Rockies where 3ft on the spot, not 3’6”. I could criticize, the very American focused concept where narrow gauge is used as elsewhere narrow gauge is use extensively. Like the Swiss Alps, in streetcars across Europe.

[@detroit_2200]

Great video man! Would love to see more of these types of videos

[@MidKitz]

Thank you for doing this!! I really love Japanese Railways and this is a great insight to their gauge

[@StarlightDX]

You should continue these stories it was very interesting.

[@FirstDagger]

Great video, strange that it doesn't have more views.

[@JapaneseNscale]

Wow this was very interesting thanks for sharing it with us.

[@felixonrails]

Wow, wonderful work and great video! I learned a lot, thanks

[@gerrylamarche6409]

That was time well spent! Thanks.

[@pigman3000000]

Super interesting! Thank you for the well made content. Subscribed!

[@chim6090]

Brilliant video, I want more videos like this!

[@potatooki]

Damn. I came from a shitty video with 170k views that taught me almost nothing about gauges, to a smaller channel that had actually interesting and informative content. Glad I clicked.

[@lzh4950]

0:10 Actually the 39m also includes neighbouring cities e.g. Yokohama. Think a reason why their cars are small is also because even in cities many people live in landed property, so to fit all of them (given the high population density) the land that each house sits on has to be smaller, & so does each house's carport - which a smaller car can more easily fit into

[@michaelkushnir2640]

Love this!

[@MrRailroadrunner]

One thing about your Acela comment at 6:30, Acela operates at 125mph, while you're saying these Japanese trains operate at 130kph. Not quite the same. Very nice to see the history though, and I will easily admit Shinkansen is faster than Acela.

[@Wingnut326]

Acela goes up to 150mph so the top speeds aren't even close

[@MrRailroadrunner]

@@Wingnut326 In service vs tested speeds. You could say they've been tested to 165, and you'd be right. But they barely ever hit that. They do not do 150 in service

[@Wingnut326]

@@MrRailroadrunner yes they do 150 in service kzbin.info/www/bejne/iYqbdnurlMyhf7M

[@tobiltok2536]

Indonesia and philippine use 1067mm gauge too.

[@koneko96]

Yes. It is used to mix of both narrow and standard gauge when under dutch colony

[@lzh4950]

Probably how Tokyo managed to donate old metro trains for Jakarta's commuter rail network. Was also thinking why in the meantime most other neighbouring countries use metre gauge instead, which is only slightly narrower

[@MovetoSEPRAILnTheRealRajo6466]

Taiwan, New Zealand, South Africa, and some part of Australia also use 1,067 mm

[@Astr0_Feline]

And that’s why they have Japanese train in Indonesia and Philippines

[@furripupau]

I'd have to dig out my books to look it up, but IIRC the choice for narrow gauge didn't originate with Morel. The decision to use 3'6" gauge had already been made before Horatio Nelson Lay was shown the door for his incompetence and dishonesty in managing the railway project. Who actually made the decision to use narrow gauge is not known.

[@felixonrails]

No matter what - it's fascinating how a probably somewhat arbitrary decision made in a meeting more than a hundred years ago affects us today (and the future too) in such ways.

[@KT43124]

It is close to metre gauge railway line... Actual Narrow Gauge is 2.6 and 2. I think it is different as per the countries.

[@dantemadden1533]

3 ft 6 in is still classed as narrow gauge, but yes there are much smaller gauges, I know that the narrow gauge lines in the State of Victoria in Australia are 2 ft 6in, but other states main rail networks are 3 ft 6 in, Australia has many rail gauges, 1 thing the state governments are trying to do is convert more railways to standard gauge in order to connect all mainland states and territories together via the rail network

[@markdebruyn1212]

Anything that is narrower than standard gauge (4 ft 8 in) is considered narrow gauge

[@flaredradiators]

you should get paid for this.

[@avigdonable]

Fek man, keep going!

[@ycs5555]

Why don’t bullet trains use narrow gauge?

[@KTo288]

They do, look up mini-shinkansen.

[@target_667]

its because narrow guage less stable a curve you can take at 160 kph on standard gauge you can only take at 130 kph on narrow gauge. so if you are going to build a new line why not build it to a standard that can support speeds over 200kph.

[@geraiswaiya2347]

@@KTo288- the mini shinkansen run on dual gauge track - the fgt was meant to dual gauge

[@Randomperc]

Well now if feel a microbe dumber for to realizing this.

[@flaredradiators]

wowowowowow