[DRAFT] Standard Railway Gauge

[Scalietti]

Noting: Rail transport is one of the most important methods of the conveyance of freight and passengers. Railways are a safe land transportation systems when compared to other forms of transportation. Railway transportation is capable of high levels of passenger and cargo utilization and energy efficiency when compared with other methods of land based transportation.

Further noting: Many nations worldwide employ rail transport within their borders, thus making rail transport one of the more important and widely used methods of transport in the world.

Understanding: There are many different varieties of railway gauge in service around the world that effectively prevents non-stop international railway transport within two nations with two different national railway guages.

Mandating: The establishment of a single standard guage to be employed by all World Assembly Member Nations throughout the world.

[Scalietti]

I need to know what area this would go under as well, before I submit it.

Also, what gauge is to be used needs to be decided on. I for one think the 1600mm gauge would be preferable as it is a gauge which allows for high train speeds, yet isn't too broad to be hard to construct.

[Grays Harbor]

no. been there, disputed that

There is no need for a mandated "standard" guage rail. None. Unless your goal is to bankrupt railroads having to convert every piece of rolling stock, every single bit of motive power, all MOW equipment, regauge/relay every last mile of track, rebuild bridges, rebore tunnels, tear up urban streets with rail lines in them, bankrupt virtually every shortline which cannot afford the changes, cause the abandonment of marginal branchlines of major roads because regauging/relaying would be cost prohibitive.... need I go on?

[Grays Harbor]

Noting: Rail transport is one of the most important methods of the conveyance of freight and passengers. Railways are a safe land transportation systems when compared to other forms of transportation. Railway transportation is capable of high levels of passenger and cargo utilization and energy efficiency when compared with other methods of land based transportation.

Further noting: Many nations worldwide employ rail transport within their borders, thus making rail transport one of the more important and widely used methods of transport in the world.

Understanding: There are many different varieties of railway gauge in service around the world that effectively prevents non-stop international railway transport within two nations with two different national railway guages.

Mandating: The establishment of a single standard guage to be employed by all World Assembly Member Nations throughout the world.

now, to pick this apart...

neighboring nations as a general rule already share a common gauge. If they do not, protocols are in place at the interchange point.

[Bears Armed]

Doesn't help those WA member nations with railways whose only land borders (or only land borders that are open to trade, anyway) are with non-WA nations -- or that don't even have any land borders at all -- but still costs those nations significant amounts of money if their railways aren't already standardised on whatever gauge you set.
Doesn't allow for the fact that some WA member nations have populations of non-Human sapient beings, who may differ sufficiently from Humans in their typical sizes for a gauge that would work as the 'standard' for railways carrying Humans to be highly unsuitable in their cases.

[Mousebumples]

I need to know what area this would go under as well, before I submit it.

Also, it is generally recommended to write the proposal to the category/strength versus the other way around.

And, like my fellow ambassadors have already stated, opposed.

[Embolalia]

Embolalia is an island nation. We are close enough to Kedalfax that we were able to build a bridge a few decades back. But Kedalfax is not a WA nation. So this would have no effect on Embolalia other than to force us to replace all of our rolling stock and all of our rails. And Kedalfax would probably end up doing so too, so our trains could go into their nation. But without this, we've been doing fine. So why is this needed?

(OOC: It might be worthwhile to note that, IRL, there are plenty of different gauges. And we get along fine without one unified standard.)

[Charlotte Ryberg]

I need to know what area this would go under as well, before I submit it.

Also, what gauge is to be used needs to be decided on. I for one think the 1600mm gauge would be preferable as it is a gauge which allows for high train speeds, yet isn't too broad to be hard to construct.

No, the honoured ambassador from Charlotte Ryberg strongly recommends 1435mm because it is the gauge much of the world knows, but the following fact should be taken to account, where gauges in one landmass may have already been standardised with a different measurement, and it would be a waste of money to make nations in that landmass convert to standard.

[Fern Prairie]

In your defense, sir, it is a general concept that desperately needed. Considering that rail travel is still the main more of transit for many nations, in both a passenger and freight context, and that many major lines do run on different gauges, even within regions, causing additional charges at each switch at a great cost to the passenger and the company in question. However, this should not be universal. Many short-line, narrow-gauge railways are needed for their lack of major expense to build and operate and provide needed arteries of transit to lesser-populated areas.

Unfortunately, sir, I would not support this in any form.