One of the great laments about the closure of so much of the old Great
Central Railway and particularly its London Extension was that we lost
the only UK railway which was built to Continental loading gauge. This
seems to be a widely accepted piece of railway lore and is mentioned by
authors such as Henshaw (in The Great Railway Conspiracy).
However, a recent thread still running on uk.railway (Usenet) has failed
to establish any historical basis for this claim of a superior loading
gauge. Dow's three volume history of the Great Central shows a loading
gauge which is much the same as the present day UK gauge. The maximum
width was 9'3" which is identical to the 2820 mm of the present day W6A
gauge. The maximum height (at centre) was 13'5" or 4089 mm which was 124
mm higher than W6A but still nothing like any of Continental gauges
approved under the Berne convention of 1913 (centre height of the
"gabarit passe-partout" which was based on the French gauge of the time
is 4280 mm).
Can anyone identify a source which confirms or refutes this notion that
the GCR could take Continental rolling stock, or explain how this
apparent myth has come about?
My purpose in asking is to assess the likelihood of Continental trains
being able to use the new Central Railway project which is intended to
link the North of England and the Midlands to the Continent (see their
website for further details: http://www.central-railway.co.uk
TIA.
--
Neil Worthington, Doncaster, UK.
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