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Australia had (and to some extent still has) a complex rail network. It was built by the Provinces and some companies to four major gages - and during the WWII era it was not efficient. "The vast majority of cargo and people were moved by sea" and "WWII showed the folly of change of gage" (Railways of the World). Early versions of WITP have misled by creating the impression of an efficient rail net. Apparently CHS is going to change that. So is RHS - at least in Level 7. IF it is popular, we MAY back fit it to Level 6 and/or Level 5 maps.

Western Australia is narrow gage. So is Queensland (NE Australia). So is the line to Alice Springs. And so is the line on Tasmania. The trans Australian is standard gage. Other places use Irish broad gage or standard gage. These are efficient - but not at the points where gage changes. We will use secondary rail lines for narrow gage and secondary rail lines in gage change hexes (like we do on the Russian border).

"GUAGE"
 
Its to stop those bloody Sydneysiders from taking over the place.
 
PS, Its not much better now.

It's actually "rail gauge" [:D]

"The rail gauge is the distance between two rails on a rail bed of a railroad. Throughout most of the world, the gauge has been standardized at 1435 mm (4'8½"). This is known as "standard gauge.""

"For military reasons (they did not want potential invaders using their own rail system for logistical reasons), some countries chose a broader gauge, and thus Russia and some former parts of the Russian Empire (Baltic region and Finland), have a wider gauge of 1535 mm, as does Spain and Portugal (which despite being neighbours have slightly different broad gauges, some special passenger trains have special wheel sets and can actually run through). With the advent of the European Community, Spain has embarked upon a partial regauging program."

Used to give Germans a fit too when they invaded Soviet Union...[8D]

Whereas we did it because we were too pigheaded to agree on anything.

Used to have Customs Posts on the borders too.

I suppose you could put in a single hex gap of road/trail at the 'STATE' borders to simulate the bottleneck of the transfer stations where the cargo was reloaded onto rolling stock of the correct guage for the next stage of the journey.

They were usually a just platform with different guage of rail on each side.

I am no long using road art to show secondary RR's I am usng rail art of different color
and it is also used to indicate gauge changes in hex's where required

Cobra Aus

ORIGINAL: Reg


I suppose you could put in a single hex gap of road/trail at the 'STATE' borders to simulate the bottleneck of the transfer stations where the cargo was reloaded onto rolling stock of the correct guage for the next stage of the journey.

They were usually a just platform with different guage of rail on each side.

You could do that but I don't think that it is necessary at this scale. With the fastest rail movement only 90 miles per day, it is already physically impossible to move LCUs from Southern Australia to Darwin via Alice Springs on my map, even with the "Ghan" railway defined as an actual "railway" (it was narrow gauge which on my map is usually "road") and the road from there Northwards defined as a major road, as quickly as they moved in real life.

Nevertheless in my upcoming map revision I have converted the narrow gauge lines in Australia to "road" data type to make it consistent with the other "low capacity" lines on the map.

Andrew

ORIGINAL: Reg


I suppose you could put in a single hex gap of road/trail at the 'STATE' borders to simulate the bottleneck of the transfer stations where the cargo was reloaded onto rolling stock of the correct guage for the next stage of the journey.

They were usually a just platform with different guage of rail on each side.

This is one of two different solutions already found in RHS. We use single hex of secondary rail between lines of primary rail (see the Manchukuo / USSR border at three different crossing points - well one is into Korea technically). The other system is that we make inefficient small scale narrow gage operations secondary lines - in this case in Queensland, Western Australia, Tasmania and on the line to Alice Springs. The whole line is secondary rail.

Dont mistake smaller guage systems for a decreased capacity. This would be more because they were single track systems, as were the majority of rail services in Australia.
 
Except in the case of the "tram" systems or timber getting systems the Rail services in Qld, WA & Tas were full scale operations.  The Ghan from Quorn to Alice Springs wasnt as good so would rate as secondary, as would the rail from Darwin south.

According to Railways of the World, the secondary lines of Australia were (and in general remain) very poorly fitted and "not comparable to those in South Africa or Japan." I used the term "inefficient" deliberately in re Australian narrow gage.

According to historical summaries in Jane's World Railways, The World Atlas of Railways and Railways of the World,
the political/economic reason that narrow gage was used in the vast rural parts of Australia was to get "more mileage per unit capital." They also indicate the typical line was (and often remains) very little used. It was important to be able to move an ore train (etc) when you had enough to fill it - not that you have high capacity service. In fact, this choice may have been very wise, in an economic sense: building and maintaining high capacity lines probably would have meant much less profitability - and in particular the narrow gage systems of Australia always (and still) are not profitable. It would have likely meant many points could not have been serviced at all. If one were to combine the economics of the state railways with that of the companies serviced - it probably WAS profitable (to the nation) to have limited capacity, long distance narrow gage lines (vice high capacity lines) in many rural areas.