Broad Gauge to Wien (Vienna)

I saw in the latest issue of the magazine Today's Railways (Europe) a story that there is a plan to extend the Russian Broad Gauge to Austria. At present there is branch to Kosice in Slovakia, built in Comecon days to integrate the steelworks there into the Soviet system.

There is another Broad Gauge line into Poland.

In present day conditions the importance of these lines would be as feeders for the Trans-Siberian for freight from Europe to the Far East. So the plan being studied is to allow Trans-Eurasian trains to be loaded in Austria. I am sure this will be a freight only line.

Would the idea of this preposed line be to tranship freight off of the Danube?

Mr. Snrub wrote:Would the idea of this proposed line be to tranship freight off of the Danube?

I doubt it. The types of traffic are quite different. I assume it would attract freight from further west for transhipment on to Trans-Siberian trains.

I haven't seen the details of what is proposed but ever since the Cold War ended people have been thinking about what to do with the old Soviet Broad gauge lines into Slovakia and Poland. Extending the Slovakian line to Wien is probably the furthest west it is practicable to go - though I do wonder whether the Polish line could go into Germany.

The Soviet plan was to integrate their European colonies into the Soviet economy and carry things like coal and steel. (Broad gauge is also ideal to transport tanks and military equipment.) Since that trade dried up the lines have been rather quiet. Connecting to the trans-Siberian is a good use.

Well first of the Soviet view on integration with other Comecon countries was: you send al your supplies to us (Moskva) or otherwise we come and get it.

But seriously to the best of my knowledge the (Soviet) broad Gauge just extendes a few miles into Poland and back then Czecho-Slovakia. So how big is the gap that must be bridged to get to Wien? Are also other options considered in the article, like equipment capable of operating on both gauges? At first sight and without having read the article I would not think it is a feasable project, at least it does not make sense to me.

Just my two euro cents.

Gijs

NS3737 wrote:Well first of the Soviet view on integration with other Comecon countries was: you send al your supplies to us (Moskva) or otherwise we come and get it.

But seriously to the best of my knowledge the (Soviet) broad Gauge just extends a few miles into Poland and back then Czecho-Slovakia. So how big is the gap that must be bridged to get to Wien? Are also other options considered in the article, like equipment capable of operating on both gauges? At first sight and without having read the article I would not think it is a feasible project, at least it does not make sense to me.

Just my two euro cents.

Gijs

It's a long time since I saw an article on the Polish line. I think it goes as far as Katowice - that's at least halfway across the country.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katowice
I see this line is single track, so not capable of large amounts of traffic.


I am not sure about the Slovakia railhead, but I think it was a steelworks. I've looked it up now. It's Kosice.
http://www.railwaygazette.com/f_single/ ... stria.html
see also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uzhhorod_- ... auge_track I see this line is also single track.

It makes sense to put these lines to work for the modern world. I presume it's the Slovakian line that will be extended to Wien - most of it would be in Slovakia.
(Of course, Russia is proving rather hostile to western countries, so the traffic may become politically difficult.)

I would have thought it would make more sense to extend the standard gauge the other way , into Russia . for asian traffic , one transfer from broad to standard gauge is not a big deal ( presumably it would be mostly containerised ). But for russia to Europe traffic , the time to transfer would be more of an obstacle .

David Benton wrote:I would have thought it would make more sense to extend the standard gauge the other way , into Russia . for asian traffic , one transfer from broad to standard gauge is not a big deal ( presumably it would be mostly containerised ). But for russia to Europe traffic , the time to transfer would be more of an obstacle .

I don't think the Russians have any intention of adopting standard gauge - why should they? They have the largest loading gauge in the world. For Europe-Asia traffic their network is still the only one that actually works. If a southern route comes it will take a long time and many of the existing standard gauge links are probably not up to heavy trans-continental traffic. For example the Turkish and Iranian parts might not be suitable at present. How to get beyond Iran? Either go through Afghanistan which seems very doubtful. Or go via Pakistan, but there's another change of gauge on going into south Asia and again on coming out.

I can't see any link connecting China to Iran with a standard gauge all the way.

This is what I found on the Russian broad gauge in Poland:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q69WLA4RiP8

Accorinng to the video this line has been built in the late 70's to export iron ore from Russia to Poland.

Gijs

NS3737 wrote:This is what I found on the Russian broad gauge in Poland:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q69WLA4RiP8

Accorinng to the video this line has been built in the late 70's to export iron ore from Russia to Poland.

Gijs

Katowice steel went the other way. Comecon was supposed to integrate all the Communist economies. In many ways the colonies were more advanced than the Soviet Union itself.

Note the brown haze in the background . I think Katowice had the distinction of having the worst air qaulity in the world back in the eighties . I remeber cycling there and thinking it wasnt so bad . No doubt , its been ovetaken by somewhere in China now .

David Benton wrote:Note the brown haze in the background . I think Katowice had the distinction of having the worst air qaulity in the world back in the eighties . I remeber cycling there and thinking it wasnt so bad . No doubt , its been ovetaken by somewhere in China now .

Soon after the wall came down I took a sleeper train from Praha and changed at Katowice for a train to Krakow. I was turfed on to the platform very early in the morning. All I remember is what looked like a very big station in what seemed to be an industrial town. I don't remember seeing any sign of the broad gauge line, but I wasn't very lively having had not enough sleep. I then had to sit in an old fashioned compartment on a rather slow train full of smokers.

Without having a map of Poland I don't know how one could see any of the BG line. I do wonder whether it would be worth extending it to Berlin.