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Re: (erielack) The Piermont Branch



It's interesting to speculate on how railroad equipment would have evolved
given a 6 foot gauge.  I assume the potential for increased size would be a
scale effect so equipment could have been considerably larger.  If my math
is right, the scale effect would be over 27%.  In it's simplest form,
applying a 27% increase factor to all the height, width and length
measurements would double the volume of a freight car "scaled up".  I'm sure
that all sorts of other factors come into play with material strengths and
so on that would make the effect less.  Mechanical and civil engineers out
there will probably jump all over this and set me right.

At a minimum, it would be interesting to know what the potential for
passenger car design would have been with just the extra width in car body
that would have been possible.  Again, I assume it would have been more than
just the 15.5".

All that being fantasy, what did the Erie and others actually do?  Was their
equipment significantly larger or was it just similar equipment over wider
wheels?




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