Gurubaran Weekly

When you go on a train you may wonder how the train stays firmly on the rails. It does so because the inner distance between 2 rails is kept the same through out the track with millimeter accuracy. This inner distance is called Rail Gauge. It also determines the size of your train coach / car.     There are quite a few rail gauges out there, but I’m going to focus on the four main ones. (Everything seems to have four main ones, like Vedas, directions, oceans etc.) Indian Gauge or Broad Gauge – 1676 mm   Broad gauge is the most commonly used gauge in India and is also the widest gauge. It is also called as Provincial , Portland , or Texas gauge in North America, Trocha Ancha (which is Spanish for Broad Gauge ) in Argentina. It is also used in Pakistan, western Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Argentina, Chile and BART metro in San Francisco. Standard Gauge – 1435 mm Standard Gauge is the oldest and most commonly used gauge in the world.   In India, it is used only ...

  High speed rail (or HSR) is a railway network in which a train can operate at high speeds, typically defined as greater than 200 KMPH or 120 MPH. Tokaido Shinkansen in Japan was first HSR line in the world. It started in 1960s. Ever since then many countries have developed their own HSR networks Some known ones are France's TGV, Germany's ICE, Spain's Renfe and China's CRH. India is currently building it’s own HSR line between Ahmedabad and Mumbai which the help of Japan. It is expected to open in 2028. The title of the fastest train in the world was achieved by the Chuo Shinkansen on a trail run between Tokyo and Osaka reaching a top speed of 600KMPH!!. The fastest commercially running train currently is the Shanghai maglev in china which runs at 420 KMPH.   Now how many think why build HSR when planes are there. There are 3 main reasons-     Travel time When you are travelling on a short distance let's say Chennai to Bengaluru, winch is around 375K...

  There are quite a few modes of rapid transit out there like trams, buses, metros, suburban rail etc. In India a little more than a dozen cities have Metros, including Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru, Delhi and many more. But why are cities choosing metros? Why not trams or suburban rail? Let’s talk about that.   Now you want to know why cities are choosing metros for their rapid transit, right? Cities choose metros mainly to move people from one part of the city to another, unlike say suburban rail which moves people from the outside to the inside of a city and vice versa. Now, you may think “why are cities building expensive metros instead of much more cheaper trams of Buses?” there are 2 main reasons:   1) Capacity 2) Traffic Let me explain.   C apacity is the most important reason cities build metros.   Metros  can carry huge swaths of people and still operate every 2 or 3 minutes. Trams, on the other hand  have only about 3/4s the capacity of a metro....