How the Spanish do it.

From:
[www.technologyreview.com]

Talgo developed an automatic gauge-switching system that works in the following way. The train slows down to about 15 kilometers per hour when it reaches the switching station, which contains the original track and the new gauge alongside. At the station, there are lateral guides alongside the track. When the train encounters these guides, its weight transfers, freeing up the wheels and unlocking the bolts that hold the wheel system in place. The wheels automatically move to the newer gauge, and the locks set once again, transferring the weight back to the wheels and off the guides.

CAF trains also operate with a proprietary system developed along the same principles. The guides take the weight of the train and unlock the wheels. As the train slides along the guides, loosening the axles within the system, the wheels readjust to the new gauge and are locked into place; then the train once again picks up speed. In both systems, a gauge change—which in the past took up to an hour—takes only about four seconds. Talgo has been operating gauge-switching trains between Barcelona and Geneva since 1968 and between Madrid and Paris since 1980.

Photo at:
[www.technologyreview.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/30/2007 07:18PM by bcp.