why did japan choose the 3'6 narrow gauge? · narrow gauge? akira saito ‘the reason why...

Japan Railway & Transport Review 31 • June 2002 33

Origin of 3'6" Gauge

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Copyright © 2002 EJRCF. All rights reserved.

Why Did Japan Choose the 3'6"Narrow Gauge?

Akira Saito

‘The reason why narrow gauge (1067 mm)was adopted for early Japanese railwaysis unclear.’ This is the first sentence ofChapter 6 in A History of JapaneseRailways, 1872–1999 written by fourwell-known specialists in Japaneserailways and published in English byEJRCF. (Some Japanese readers mighthope for a Japanese version too.)I was invited to the publishing party onthe book’s completion and while glancingthrough my copy I came across the abovesentence. Surely, I thought, more can besaid on the subject than just that. Theremay never have been a written recordexplaining why the 3'6" narrow gauge wasadopted for the first Japanese railways, buteven if there was, no historian has everfound it. My guess is that the final decisionwas probably made Vice Minister ofFinance Shigenobu Okuma (1836–1922)in the Meiji government assisted by hisinterpreter, Masaru Inoue (1843–1910),the only Japanese expert in rail technologyat the time. Perhaps the two mendiscussed the decision later, but whateverwas said has been lost with the passageof time. This is not a trivial matter, becausetheir decision cannot be disregarded onJapanese railways.Since the likely two prime movers in thedecision left no ‘confession,’ we mustjourney into the past and discover thereason for ourselves. After my mindstarted working on this track, I decidedto take up the quest for an answer—mysearch was to lead me to Wales and theIsle of Man in the UK, and to Norway.Early steam engines were huge. They hadto be, because their power came fromatmosphere pressures, and the only wayto boost output was to increase pistonarea. Even after locomotives began usinghigh-pressure steam, a similar ruleapplied—the larger the locomotive, themore power it had. Also, steel was anexpensive commodity so all earlylocomotives were made of weakerwrought or cast iron. For the same reason,

locomotives were made stronger bymaking them bigger, explaining why the7' broad gauge once offered advantagesover Robert Stephenson & Company’s 4'8"standard gauge. Until the mid-1850s, arailway builder could only choosebetween standard gauge and broad gauge,explaining why standard gauge was callednarrow gauge in those days!Gradually, standard gauge spreadthroughout Britain and into other partsof Europe but when the builders beganto look towards exports to less-developedareas, they preferred cheaper (and moreprofitable) construction methods.Legislation in England prohibitedconstruction of narrow-gauge main lines,but the expansion of slate mining inWales led to a search for some way tomechanize the human- and animal-powered mine railways that were mostlynarrow gauge. Steam locomotivesprovided the answer and as thetechnology improved, it was realized thatthey could haul carriages on narrow-gauge lines too.Here I must introduce Carl Abraham Pihl(1825–97), who was as important toNorway’s railway development as Inouewas to Japan’s. Pihl studied engineeringat Chalmers Institute (now ChalmersUniversity of Technology) at Gothenbergin Sweden and then went to England andapprenticed himself to Robert Stephenson(1803–59). Two years later, he beganworking on a railway construction projectin eastern England. In 1850, he returnedto Norway to join his country’s firstrailway construction project, which hadjust started under the direction of RobertStephenson himself. Pihl was the onlyNorwegian with any experience in railengineering, and played an importantrole in building his country’s first railway,a standard-gauge line that opened in1854. He went back to England again toassist in construction of port and railwayfacilities, primarily in Wales and thenreturned home once more because of the

Crimean War, becoming the f i rs tmanaging engineer of Norway’s RailwayConstruction Bureau.Norway only became fully independentfrom Sweden at the beginning of the 20thcentury and was nominally underSweden’s control when Stephenson andPihl brought the first rail technology tothe country. Clearly, the cheaper narrowgauge would have offered advantages tothe builders partly because of Norway’sd i f f i cu l t topography wi th manymountains, lakes and fjords and partlybecause of its backward economy. (Atthe time, Norway was the poorest regionin Europe with a population of 2 million.)However, the first priority of the builderswas to construct a link with Swedenwhich used the standard gauge, soNorway became standard gauge too.And even today, a Swedish companyowns the locomotives and passengercarriages operating on the line runningsouth-west from Oslo into Sweden, andthe abridged timetable published inNorway does not even show the service.Two or three years after the opening ofthe first standard-gauge line, it becameapparent that although standard gaugewas fine for a main international line, itwould be very uneconomical to laystandard-gauge track in the mountainousareas. When the decision was made toconstruct other separate lines, Pihlsuccessfully argued that the next twoshould be narrow gauge to keepconstruction costs down. He had apossible choice of two narrow gauges:the 3'6" narrow gauge or the meternarrow gauge. Since both Stephensons(George and Robert) were locomotivemanufacturers, they could adapt theirengines to any track gauge, but they weres t i l l no t comple te ly su re aboutperformance on narrow gauges and hadtried a number of experiments in a minethat they operated. Robert Stephensondied in 1859 giving his protégé Pihlseveral years to get some opinions from

Origin of 3'6" Gauge

Japan Railway & Transport Review 31 • June 200234 Copyright © 2002 EJRCF. All rights reserved.

the master on narrow track gauges. Pihlseems to have decided that the gauge of3'3" or so were too narrow and settledon the 3'6" gauge, the first time the gaugehad been used for a passenger line. Hisdecision might also have been influencedby a preference for using inner valvegears, because the slightly wider 3'6"gauge offered more potential than thenarrower gauge for using this design.With the benefit of hindsight, Pihl wasright to choose the 3'6" narrow gaugebecause it offers greater operating safety,

higher transport capacity and better ridecomfort than the 3', meter and othernarrow gauges. But was Pihl the inventorof the 3'6" gauge? Perhaps the honourbelongs more to Robert Stephensonb e c a u s e h e m a n u f a c t u r e d t h elocomotives using this gauge and ransome trials, but even so, Pihl was a majorforce in getting the gauge accepted.Norway placed its first order for a 3'6"gauge locomotive in 1860 and the first3'6" narrow-gauge line opened in June1862 from Hamar (120 km north of Oslo)

to Grundset. A second 3'6" narrow-gaugetrack began linking the northern city ofTrondheim on the Atlantic Ocean with theinterior in August 1864.The locomotives supplied by RobertStephenson & Company had B-1 axles ona long (384 cm) fixed wheelbase with thetrailing wheels mounted on a fixed frame.The fixed wheelbase was too long for thesharp curves in the Trondheim region andresulted in a derailment. The minimumradius for track curves around Hamar was300 m, but in the northern Trondheimdistrict, it was set at only 200 m or so,although Stephenson’s company hadinsisted on a minimum radius of 300 yards(275 m).The ra i lway then impor ted 1 -Blocomotives with swiveling, single-axleleading wheels and there were no moreproblems with derailment. Incidentally,Japan imported the same type of 1-Blocomotive for its first Class 150, but theleading wheels were f ixed. Thelocomotives also ran without problemsbecause track curves were more gradualin Japan. Norway still has one 3'6" line

Trondheim

Storen

AndalsnesAndalsnes

Bjori

Dombas

Roros

HamarHamarHamarGurndset

NorNorwegian Railway wegian Railway MuseumMuseumNorwegian Railway Museum

EidsvoldEidsvold

Oslo

to Sweden

to Sweden

Kroderen

Vikersund

DrammenDrammenDrammen

GrovaneGrovaneGrovaneKristiansandKristiansand

FlåmVoss

BergenBergen

StavangerStavangerStavanger

Kylling Bridge

Rauma Line

Setesdal Line

Kroder Line

Gamle–Vose Line

Constructed in 3'6" gauge but reconstructed to standard gauge or closed later

Constructed in standard gauge

Railway Network in Southern Norway

Locomotive by Robert Stephenson & Co. (1861) withB-1 axles on a long (384 cm) fixed wheelbase

(Author)

Avonside (1864) 1-B locomotive with swiverlling,single-axle leading wheels (Author)

Japan Railway & Transport Review 31 • June 2002 35Copyright © 2002 EJRCF. All rights reserved.

Vulcan Foundry (1871) Class 150 1-B locomotiveimported to Japan (Author)

Dübs 1-C-1 tank locomotive on Setesdal Line (Author)

You get an excellent view of the locomotive from the sixth carriage because the minimum curve radius seems tofollow the 300-yard guideline recommended by Stephenson! (Author)

N o r w a y ’s r a i l t e c h n o l o g y a n dlocomotives came from Britain, so it isnatural that the railway consultants inBritain ’s colonies were extremelyinterested in transportation developmentsthere. Sir C. Fox served as a consultantin Australia and sent his son Douglas toNorway in 1864 to gather information.The information was put to good use thefollowing year in Queensland.New Zealand began laying track to the

in operation—part of the former SetesdalLine near Kristiansand in southernNorway preserved as a vintage railway.It remains fairly untouched by time—arailway constructed to narrow-gaugespecifications in order to save money.The 20- to 25-kg rails can accommodatean axle load of 6 tonnes and are so thinthat the gauge appears wider than it is.A Dübs 1-C-1 tank locomotive with914-mm driving wheels hauls threewooden passenger carriages up gradesof 20 per mill. When the line wasconstructed, it was assumed that thelocomotives would require a cable assiston any gradient greater than 25 per mill.Here I’d like to digress for a moment.Norway ’s modern standard-gaugerailways have plenty of curves, and yourarely see a straight stretch of track. Theonly double-tracked sections arecommuter lines and the rail link fromOslo to Oslo Airport. Although Norwayis described as having no high-speedtrains, the airport link runs at speeds ofup to 210 km/h. However, the samerolling stock is used for limited expresseson trunk lines with many sharp curves,causing the train to slow to less than100 km/h and emit screeching from thebogies. There are 45° shock absorbersbetween the bogies and axle boxes andthe axles appear to shift laterally as thetrain passes a curve. Needless to say, theride comfort is poor but the upside is thatyou get an excellent view of thelocomotive from the sixth carriagebecause the minimum curve radius seemsto follow the 300-yard guidelinerecommended by Stephenson!On the Isle of Man, I saw locomotivesfrom the 1870s almost all manufactured

by Beyer Peacock with leading bogiesthat are very similar to those once usedin Norway. They now haul tourist trainsand look very attractive with their brightlypolished boilers. The 3' gauge is not aproblem because the island line is notconnected to any other. This furtherreduction in the width of narrow gaugefrom 3'6" to 3' shows how much railtechnology advanced in the few yearsbefore the 1870s.

Origin of 3'6" Gauge

Japan Railway & Transport Review 31 • June 200236 Copyright © 2002 EJRCF. All rights reserved.

Avonside (1865) locomotive in Queensland (Author)

5'3" gauge from 1863 but all of it hadbeen reduced to 3 '6 " by 1870 .Similarly, standard-gauge track laid inIndonesia from 1867 was graduallychanged to 3'6". The gauge-changetook time and was only completedduring Japan’s wartime occupation.Meanwhile, in England, lobbyists eagerto take advantage of recent technicaladvances overseas began pressuring thegovernment to permit narrow-gaugerailway construction. One keen promoterof narrow gauge was the Duke ofSutherland who believed that the standardgauge was unsuitable for backward ruralareas. The Duke was born and lived inLondon and seems to have had littleinterest in his landholdings in the Countyof Sutherland in northern Scotland. Buthe was very interested in railwaydevelopment and became a central figurein rail circles, offering financial backingand consensus-making expertise.Since the government prohibitedconstruction of narrow-gauge main lines,public’s attention turned to slate mines atFestiniog in Wales, where human or

animal power was used to pull carts onnarrow track (most no wider than 2').Railway-related people at Festiniogdecided to mechanize the track usingsteam locomotives.A standard-gauge track belonging to arailway company already came close tothe mine and mine owners feared that ifthe standard gauge reached near the minetrack, the mine might end up in the handsof the railway company. The mineowners therefore decided to mechanizethe mine railway themselves to guaranteeaccess to the nearby port. In 1864,Festiniog Railway started operating on a2' narrow gauge (600 mm) and was

hauled by a B-locomotive. Before themechanization, the mine carts had usedgravity to roll downhill but had beenhauled back up separately by horses.This was more strenuous work thanhauling slate inside the mine because theelevation rose by 216 m over a length of22 km. Developing a locomotive capableof pulling such a load up this grade onsuch a narrow gauge took 3 years.Although Festiniog Railway advancednarrow-gauge technology, the railwayonly proved its potential after a Fairlielocomotive with special bogies wasintroduced in 1869. Just as interest innarrow-gauge railways was rising,

Beyer Peacock (1866) 1-B locomotive in Norwegian Railway Museum (Author) Another Beyer Peacock 1-B locomotive in operations since 1873 on the Isle ofMan (Author)

Festiniog Railway’s first B-locomotive buit in 1863 (Author)

Japan Railway & Transport Review 31 • June 2002 37Copyright © 2002 EJRCF. All rights reserved.

Fairlie locomotive with special bogies introduced in1869 (Author)

Englishman Robert Fairlie (1831–85)demonstrated how the B+B steamlocomotive he had invented could boostcarrying capacity on the FestiniogRailway. But even Fairlie experiencedconsiderable difficulty designing alocomotive for the 2' gauge at Festiniogand when he was later invited to the RioGrande Railway in the United States hisadvice was to build no narrower than 3'.This was the origin of the 3' gauge in theUnited States.Fairlie’s locomotive had insufficientspace to mount the valve gear inside, sohe adopted the first Walschaert valve geardesign in Britain. He had great difficultybefore designing flexible high-pressuresteam pipes to fit the bogie configuration.I took a good look and saw how hedesigned what looks like a rubber pipecovered in white cloth wrapped in astainless-steel netting. Improvement inthese materials offered a simple solutionposed by steam at about 10 atmospheres.Fairlie’s locomotive offered better stabilityand far superior performance and thedouble boilers were more than three timeslarger. These advantages plus theeconomic attraction of narrow gaugequickly attracted the public’s attention andFairlie was lionized in the London Timesand other major newspapers. Countrieswith vast rural areas were also interested.In 1870, at the instigation of the Duke ofSutherland, the governments of Russia,India, France, Germany, Sweden andSwitzerland sent numerous delegates toh i s Fes t in iog Ra i lway to ga therinformation on the new technology.

When I sat in the lobby of the old hotelin Portmadoc at the port once served bythe Festiniog Railway, I could feel theexcitement of those days—Fairlie’s LittleWonder hauling a delegation in four carswith 90 empty freight wagons trailingbehind. There is still a photograph of thescene and I walked along the line forabout a third of its distance to the exactspot where the photographer had stood130 years previously and took a picturefrom almost the same angle. Today, thesame view complete with an exactreplica of the locomotive painted thesame reddish-brown can be seen amongtrees that have grown tall in theintervening years. Visitors enjoy seeingthe locomotive chugging gallantly up thecontinuous grade of 10 to 15 per mill atmore than 40 km/h.In 1863, the same year that British railwayengineers first became interested innarrow-gauge railway developments inNorway and the year that the 2' gaugeFes t in iog Ra i lway began s t eamoperations, Inoue left Japan in secret withfour friends bound for England. They leftin secret, because the Japanese Tokugawa

Shogunate still banned foreign travel.Inoue s tudied c iv i l and ra i lwayengineering at University College inLondon and returned to Japan in 1868 tobecome Japan’s first railway expert.H i s r e t u rn co inc ided w i t h t heestablishment of a new Meiji governmentthat was eager to modernize the country.The government was convinced thatrailways were the best way to promotemodernization and exert centralizedauthority throughout Japan. Inoue was inthe right place at the right time.While Inoue was studying in London,narrow-gauge railways were beingconstructed in one European colony afteranother and the media was praisingrailways and calling for more. In 1868,the year Inoue returned home, a specialcommittee of experts met in England topromote the concept of a global networkof cheap-to-bui ld, narrow-gaugerailways. After his return, Inoue musthave heard of Fairlie’s successful narrow-gauge locomotive. A new age hadarrived—a time when narrow-gaugerailways were being accepted by railexperts as an excellent way to bring

Working replica of Fairlie’s Little Wonder double-boiler locomotive. The only difference from the original is thecab roof—the original did not have one. (Author)

Origin of 3'6" Gauge

Japan Railway & Transport Review 31 • June 200238 Copyright © 2002 EJRCF. All rights reserved.

Akira Saito

Mr Saito is the Chairman of the Railway Society of Keio University Alumni. After graduating in

1957, he joined Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. where he became Representative Director of Obihiro Nissan

and Managing Director of Autech Japan, Inc. Since retiring in 1994, he has been actively researching

railway and steam locomotive history.

modern civilization to underdevelopedparts of the world.At the end of the 1860s, who would havethought that Japan would become amajor economic power? In those days,the government still had not come upwith its strident ‘Enrich the Country andStrengthen the Military’ slogan. Thecheap-to-build narrow gauge wasprobably the only option considered atthe t ime. When the Norwegiangovernment indicated that it was notgoing to invest in railway construction,local citizens raised the funds throughbonds. On the other hand, Japandepended entirely on funds raised inEngland, so we can assume that theJapanese government was not in a positionto consider any track other than narrowgauge. Inoue probably would not havethought anything better was possible.Japan’s topographical features permittedmore gradual curves than in Norway,perhaps explaining why the 3'6" gaugewas chosen over other even narrowergauges. Edmund Morel (1841–71), aBritish engineer hired by the Japanesegovernment, conferred with Inoue and itis likely that these two men agreed on3'6". Vice Minister of Finance Okumahad no first-hand knowledge of trackgauges and surely had no option but toaccept Inoue’s recommendation.

Today’s conventional (non-shinkansen)rail network does not have curves sharpenough to require narrow gauge andNorway’s main lines have even sharpercurves but the tracks are built to standardgauge. Clearly, it is safe to assume thatJapan’s choice of the 3'6" narrow gaugewas based more on the cheaperconstruction cost than on the demandsof topography. Norway graduallyreplaced its narrow gauge track withstandard gauge but Japan did not take thisroad because of economic and militaryconsiderations.There are still some loud complaintsabout the problems caused by Japan’sadoption of the 3'6" narrow gauge but itis simplistic to say that if Japaneserailways had switched to standard gaugethey would have immediately enjoyedgreater capacity and speed. I believet h e r e w o u l d h a v e b e e n l i t t l eimprovement at least up until WWII.Norway’s standard gauge track permits

an axle load of only 15.5 tonnes andadvanced locomotives have to deal withcurves and gradients using 1.53-mdriving wheels and four axles. A broadergauge does not of fer substant ialadvantages unless the basic trackconfiguration is improved.Although Japan was strong militarily inthe years leading up to WWII, thepeople’s standard of living still placed itamong countries that needed no morethan a narrow-gauge railway.It seems to me that Okuma and Inoue’schoice of the 3'6" narrow gauge was justdictated by the times. �

Fairlie replica loco chugging gallantly up the continuous grade of 10 to 15 per millat more than 40 km/h on the loop line at Duart just like the original 130 years ago.

(Author)

Driver’s cab of Fairlie replica loco (Author)