EU Commission will publish a regulation forcing Portugal and Spain to adopt Standard Gauge

[Giugiaro]

The EU Commission wants to pass a regulation forcing Portugal and Spain to convert their railway network to standard gauge amidst pressures on the European infrastructure from the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine.

According to Transportes e Negócios, the EU Commission wants Portugal and Spain to adopt the standard gauge in the Atlantic and Mediterranean Corridors by 2030, the RTE-T network by 2040, and the whole rail network by 2050.

Brussels also imposed on Portugal to build their new High-Speed Line between Porto and Lisbon entirely in standard gauge, or the project won't receive EU funding.
The imposition applies even if the new HSL becomes detached from the national rail network and limited to high-speed passenger services only.

 

[LSWR Cavalier]

They are trying to force Finland to do likewise. Seems to make sense, when the tracks need to be renewed to use "standard" gauge.

 

[JonasB]

It applies to all broad gauge member states except Ireland. But only the TEN-T lines, not their entire networks.

It is therefore proposed, for all Member States with a land rail connection with other Member States, to include a requirement to develop all new TEN-T railway lines with a European standard nominal track gauge of 1 435 mm and also to develop a migration plan towards this European standard nominal track gauge for all existing lines of the European Transport Corridors.

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX:52022PC0384

 

[Cloud Strife]

The EU Commission wants to pass a regulation forcing Portugal and Spain to convert their railway network to standard gauge amidst pressures on the European infrastructure from the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine.

There's a lot of logic to this. The EU will make substantial amounts of money available for the conversion, and common standards generally result in gains.

However, it's not really a done deal. The Baltic States are on the fence, the Finns have said "get lost", and it's hard to see any agreement without a substantial amount of funding being made available from the EU.

 

[FormerBritInMe]

They are trying to force Finland to do likewise.

I wonder, does Finland do more interchange with Russia or the rest of Scandinavia? Seems as a practical matter that would determine which gauge makes more sense for them. Especially for freight.

Interestingly, Russia and Finland technically have different gauges as there is a slight difference of a couple of mm but it is not enough to prevent through running.

 

[rf_ioliver]

They are trying to force Finland to do likewise. Seems to make sense, when the tracks need to be renewed to use "standard" gauge.

Not going to happen (and there can not be any "forcing" anyway in this matter).

Minister says Commission proposal to narrow Finland's train tracks to EU standards "unreasonable"

Due to historic reasons, Finland's track gauge is the same as imperial Russia's once was — 1,524mm — which is 89mm wider than the European standard.

yle.fi

The proposal states: "According to the proposal, new tracks should be built to the European standard rail width without exception. It also calls for future plans to retrofit existing rail networks to the European standard rail width, except in areas where it would not justified due to reasons of benefit or cost, the ministry noted in a statement issued on Tuesday." (emphasis mine)

The only standard gauge track I could foresee in Finland would be if the tunnel between Talllinn and Helsinki was built...if ever

 

[JonasB]

The only standard gauge track I could foresee in Finland would be if the tunnel between Talllinn and Helsinki was built...if ever

Something that has been discussed and that seems like a reasonable idea in my opinion is a standard gauge track from Haparanda to Röyttä, giving the steel plant there access to the European standard gauge network. But I don't know how likely that is to happen.

I wonder, does Finland do more interchange with Russia or the rest of Scandinavia? Seems as a practical matter that would determine which gauge makes more sense for them. Especially for freight.

In terms of value, Finland's trade with Sweden alone is larger than their trade with Russia according to the 2020 statistics. But, due to geographical reasons, goods to and from the rest of the EU mostly arrive by ship.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Spain is well on the way to building a strategic standard gauge network (by new-build standard gauge or dualling broad gauge lines).
Apart from the new standard gauge HSLs, standard gauge freight can already reach Valencia from France (Perpignan), and there is a similar plan to reach north-eastern Spain (Basque) via Irun.
New broad gauge lines, eg those in Galicia, also have sleepers ready fitted for future standard gauge conversion.
Talgo and CAF are also leaders in building dual-gauge stock and run-through gauge-changing converters at strategic points on the network.

Conversely, there are two significant EU broad gauge lines which extend from the Ukraine border, into Poland (almost to Krakow), and Slovakia (to Košice).
These were to feed steel plants in PL/SK with Ukrainian ore, but those plants have declined and the iron ore source at Kryvyi Rih is very close to the present Russian-occupied zone.
Until the Russian invasion of Ukraine, there was also an international plan to extend the Slovak broad gauge line as far as Vienna for container traffic.

 

[JKF]

The difference of 89mm between Russian and Standard gauge won‘t leave enough room for dual gauge will it? There’d be barely a gap between the rails.

I can foresee Ukraine going standard for political/defence reasons.

 

[rf_ioliver]

Something that has been discussed and that seems like a reasonable idea in my opinion is a standard gauge track from Haparanda to Röyttä, giving the steel plant there access to the European standard gauge network. But I don't know how likely that is to happen.



In terms of value, Finland's trade with Sweden alone is larger than their trade with Russia according to the 2020 statistics. But, due to geographical reasons, goods to and from the rest of the EU mostly arrive by ship.

The line mentioned is the Röyttäsatamarata, about 8 km of standard gauge would be needed if it were to be converted. At the moment I can't see any traffic on that line for the next few weeks but there are two freight trains to Tornio yard a day, so wagons from these might be shunted there.

Regarding shippng, yes, most comes by ship - but wagons are then transported to Russia from the Finnish ports which are a lot more accessible than St.Petersburg, eg: Vuosaari, Kotka etc. Finland maintains four rail crossings into Russia so the traffic is not insignificant.

 

[Taunton]

Until some months ago there was a very considerable rail freight traffic between Russia and Finland, principally on the line from St Petersburg, it was the most significant freight flow on VR, the Finnish railways. The suspension of these services has caused a considerable industrial dislocation in Finland. Oil products, wheat, containers, cars and (especially) raw timber were major westbound bulk trainloads. The substantial and very modern Finnish pulp mill industry had been effectively cut off from domestic timber supply in recent years by environmental etc restrictions on logging, and imported the majority of their raw material by the trainload from Russia. I think Finland was still the No 1 producer in the EU of newsprint. The cars were western brands and models, Ford, Toyota, etc, from these companies' assembly plants in Russia.

The trade with Sweden is also substantial, but almost wholly by ship, not a lot goes by land on the big loop round the top of the Baltic. Likewise trade with Estonia is by ship.

VR have a large batch of 25 kV electric locos, which were built in Russia, and which handle these trains, and some passenger services as well.

 

[rf_ioliver]

You mean the Sr1 locomotives? They're reaching the end of their lives and the Sr2 and Sr3s are replacing them on most workings. Those that do cross the border switch to Russian locomotives at the border crossing itself. The other crossings are unelectrified, though at Arola electrification extends to the border on the Finnish side so you can see 3xSr2 locomotives hauling the ore trains there.

Looking at today's workings at Vainikkala, there's at least one train every hour of the day crossing the border. The biggest hit has really been the loss of the Allegro services. There's about 12 freight trains in and out of the yard from the Finnish side, though about half are cancelled for various reasons.

Most wood for pulp is domestic - there's between 10 and 20 trains in and out of the pulp mills at Äänekoski every day - enough to warrant electrification of that line in recent years. One particular freight route that has been affected is the ore trains from Russia to the steel mill at Raahe; otherwise the oil/petrochemical traffic is down significantly. The border situation is complicated as you can imagine.

Freight to Russia resumed on March 30th of this year - VR says it will terminate all contracts by the end of 2022.

 

[StephenHunter]

I can foresee Ukraine going standard for political/defence reasons.

They've already announced that. They're reopening the standard gauge cross-border line from Hrebenne to Rava Rus'ka for passenger use on the 24th, with plans to extend operations to Lviv and even Kyiv.

 

[Gag Halfrunt]

The difference of 89mm between Russian and Standard gauge won‘t leave enough room for dual gauge will it? There’d be barely a gap between the rails.

Gauntlet track is used for 1435 mm/1520 mm dual gauge.

File:Haparanda-Tornio rail bridge Sep2008.jpg - Wikimedia Commons

commons.wikimedia.org

 

[Route115?]

Given that you can't change all the rolling stock overnight, how easy would a conversion be? Could you have dual guage lines (swiches must be an issue, or even convertible bogies, which I have seen proposed for the Montreux - Luzern route?

 

[Taunton]

When the first Russian railways were being built in 1840 Czar Nikolai I took a keen interest. It was him who sent the Russian engineers to Britain to learn about main lines being built, they used in their training the London & Southampton, which in those times was starting from Vauxhall, and in a translation error where they thought the word meant 'terminus', Russian to this day has the word 'Voksal' for main railway station.

The engineers described how 4'8" was becoming the standard gauge across Europe, and a train could thus run all the way from Moscow to Berlin or Paris. Czar Nikolai immediately said this was the last thing he wanted. Born in 1796, he had just become a junior army officer in 1812 when Napoleon invaded to Moscow. He didn't want any means to facilitate The West getting into Russia again, with their equipment. So a different gauge. He participated in the engineers' discussions that if they made it only 4" wider, it would be a right nuisance to even lay dual gauge (as in the Finland/Sweden example, where you now need four rails, not just three as the GWR used), and even more challenging to adapt locomotives.

Roll on 100 years, and the gauge difference is still seen as a key part of preventing the German invasion of the Soviet Union in the early 1940s, as rolling stock could not come through, things were not readily adapted, they had to fall back on road vehicles, and just like Napoleon were then completely thwarted by winter ice, spring mud, and lack of supplies.

 

[stuu]

When the first Russian railways were being built in 1840 Czar Nikolai I took a keen interest. It was him who sent the Russian engineers to Britain to learn about main lines being built, they used in their training the London & Southampton, which in those times was starting from Vauxhall, and in a translation error where they thought the word meant 'terminus', Russian to this day has the word 'Voksal' for main railway station.

That isn't true, although it would be good if it was. The word voksal in Russian does indeed come from Vauxhall, but from the park, not the railway

 

[U-Bahnfreund]

The EU shouldn't regulate on gauge imho. Maybe force and regulate acceptable cross-border passenger services instead?

 

[Gag Halfrunt]

The other explanation for broad gauge in Russia is that 5 ft gauge was widely used in the American South and an American engineer recommended it for the Moscow-St Petersburg railway.

 

[Fragezeichnen]

The EU shouldn't regulate on gauge imho. Maybe force and regulate acceptable cross-border passenger services instead?

I don't agree with that

It is precisely interopability issues of all kinds(e.g. country A requires fire extinguisher fluid X, country B requires fire extinguisher fluid Y, and neither has the slightest interest in accomodating the other) which stops cross border services from running in the first place, and this is just that.

That's why the EU has established a common safety system, and is working towards a common safety authority, so trains can be authorised once and run everywhere, instead of needing literally years to get authorised in successive countries.

 

[DanielB]

That common safety system is now hindering cross border trains however: Arriva was not allowed to extend their Aachen - Maastricht service to Liège yet, due to their trains not having ETCS but just the classic Belgian system. Despite the line only being equipped with the latter.

And the locos used on the Dutch high speed line cannot be used on services to Germany, due to them having a different software version not approved in Germany.

 

[gysev]

That common safety system is now hindering cross border trains however: Arriva was not allowed to extend their Aachen - Maastricht service to Liège yet, due to their trains not having ETCS but just the classic Belgian system. Despite the line only being equipped with the latter.

The Liège - Visé (Dutch border) line does have ETCS L1 - see https://opendata.infrabel.be/explor...nctive.etcs_level&disjunctive.line_name_input. That was not the case when the trains were ordered (although Liège-Guillemins station was at that time), but even then it was made clear that new trains would have to have ETCS installed if they wanted to be approved in Belgium.

 

[Rescars]

I don't agree with that

It is precisely interopability issues of all kinds(e.g. country A requires fire extinguisher fluid X, country B requires fire extinguisher fluid Y, and neither has the slightest interest in accomodating the other) which stops cross border services from running in the first place, and this is just that.

That's why the EU has established a common safety system, and is working towards a common safety authority, so trains can be authorised once and run everywhere, instead of needing literally years to get authorised in successive countries.

Yet in years gone by long before the EU was invented, CIWL was able to run through coaches on the Orient Express from Paris to Istambul and indeed internationally all over Europe. Oh the price of progress!

 

[Giugiaro]

Yet in years gone by long before the EU was invented, CIWL was able to run through coaches on the Orient Express from Paris to Istambul and indeed internationally all over Europe.

Someone here will definitively explain much better than me how it's not a good idea to compare CIWL's old international services to today's struggles.

CIWL started during simpler times when the three biggest worries were the loading gauge, the weight of the train and the weight per axle. (CIWL changed the bogeys of the coaches when crossing breaks of gauge)
There was also not much competition from road and air travel, either because they were nonexistent, or underdeveloped.

So people swallowed whatever the rail could offer. Nowadays you have to compete with other means of transport, but also solve many technical differences that have been implemented independently in each European country.

Many governments put their bets on road and air travel during the 20th Century and that meant that there wasn't much incentive to implement a common railway framework, and they always favoured their own solution to all kinds of engineering and operational problems.

 

[S&CLER]

The other explanation for broad gauge in Russia is that 5 ft gauge was widely used in the American South and an American engineer recommended it for the Moscow-St Petersburg railway.

I believe it was no less a person than "Whistler's Father", Lt George Washington Whistler (West Point class of 1819), who had been engaged on the Baltimore and Ohio and also visited England with the party of engineers who studied the very earliest railways here, and made the fateful and in hindsight probably wrong decision to recommend the British standard gauge for the B&O. Congress later stipulated that B&O practice should be the model for the technical standards of the UP and SP transcontinental lines, though at least the loading gauges in the western states were larger than those in the east.

 

[StephenHunter]

Yet in years gone by long before the EU was invented, CIWL was able to run through coaches on the Orient Express from Paris to Istambul and indeed internationally all over Europe. Oh the price of progress!

The UIC has been around since 1922. CIWL/TEN were operating to Istanbul until 1977, twenty years after the Treaty of Rome. Before the pandemic, Paris to Moscow was a thing.

 

[duesselmartin]

Although generally pro European, this seems to be over regulating. If it makes economic sense, states will do it on their own

 

[ShadowKnight]

I do think that Ireland should change to standard gauge, if so to save on new rolling stock in the future and the ever theoretical fixed link to GB

 

[duesselmartin]

Building stock for 1600 mm gauge does not cost that much more as it affects only a handfull of compoments. Its the overall loading gauge that makes things more complicated.

If Ireland would convert, it would have no economic benefit. A slow transition would cut off parts of the network, some lines might be seen as not profitable. A link to mainland UK seems unlikely too. Even if that were to happen, Talgo shows that gauge change can be done on the move.
This is really an area where the Comission should keep their hands off and let each country decide on practible grounds.

 

[XAM2175]

This is really an area where the Comission should keep their hands off and let each country decide on practible grounds.

Well, as per @JonasB at post #3, Ireland is unquestionably safe from the current regulation (and on more than one ground)!

It is therefore proposed, for all Member States with a land rail connection with other Member States, to include a requirement to develop all new TEN-T railway lines with a European standard nominal track gauge of 1 435 mm and also to develop a migration plan towards this European standard nominal track gauge for all existing lines of the European Transport Corridors.