London Banter - View Single Post - Scotland - England: West side or east side? And who's advsing the Scots?

Recliner[_3_] · July 29th 15, 07:47 PM posted to uk.transport.london

wrote:
In article
-september.
, (Recliner) wrote:

wrote:
In article , y ()
wrote:

On Tue, 28 Jul 2015 13:55:53 -0500
wrote:
There are no metre gauge railways of any significance in this country.
The DLR uses lots of docklands abandoned railway viaducts so it was
presumably thought to be simpler to stick to standard gauge which
seems to handle the curves without problems.

The trains handle the curves but they really don't sound happy bout it
especially on the west india key to westferry curve. There's a huge
amount of squealing and shuddering even at single digit speeds. I
suspect its really on the limit of curve radius you can have with
standard gauge track.

Metre gauge trains aren't immune to this problem either.

They can handle tighter curves than standard gauge. That's why most
mountain railways are narrow gauge.

At quite low maximum speeds, though.

Yes, but still much higher than the DLR's 40mph maximum speed. It's an
urban tram with closely-spaced stops, not a high speed intercity service.
Even Croydon Tramlink has higher speeds.