maintains this grade for nearly 500 metres, so a car with a relatively
high power to weight ratio will be required if reasonable speeds are
to be maintained on the grade.
Car Width and Track Gauge
A.23
The width of the car and the gauge of the track are important
inter-related elements of the vehicle specification. In recent
years there has been a marked tendency towards wider LRV's to
increase capacity and reduce car purchase costs per unit of
capacity. Cars of up to 2.65m width are now in use in Western
Europe and hardly any tram systems use vehicles narrower than 2.2m. (It should be noted that a modern bus is 2.5m wide.) The
existing Hong Kong trams at 1.98m wide are among the narrowest
in the world.
A.24
A.25
A.26
Careful consideration has therefore been given to the possibilities
of using wider vehicles since the opportunity of replacing the
entire fleet at one time is unlikely to arise again for many years..
Consideration was also given to changing the track gauge from the present 1.067m to standard gauge (1.435m). For a completely new
system, standard gauge is to be preferred on the grounds of improved vehicle stability and ride comfort. However many European LRT systems have retained metre gauge, and as a result of high maintenance standards (especially of cross-levels), a very
satisfactory quality of ride is achieved. Furthermore many main
line and suburban railway systems, notably those in South Africa
and Japan, use the same narrow track gauge as Hong Kong Tramways
and achieve relatively high speeds. Nor, if the clearances are
available, does a narrow gauge preclude fairly wide vehicles;
most of the Tokyo subway and suburban railway systems use vehicles
about 2.8 metres wide on a 1.067m track gauge.
In short, whilst standard gauge would be preferable for a
totally new system, the retention of the existing 1.067m
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