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A comment on ‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’. Parent comment

Re:‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’ by jpatokal on Tuesday March 13, 2018 @07:26PM (#16580818)
The main cause of the cancellation was political: there were difficulties with the supplier (Siemens) and the price spiralled up to the point where it would never have paid off.

http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/single-view/view/helsinki...

The Helsinki Metro is also a bit unusual in that it uses Russian wide gauge track (for compatability with the rest of the rail system) but Western tech otherwise, meaning basically everything has to be custom made and is priced accordingly.

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Re:‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’ by ptaipale on Wednesday March 14, 2018 @01:55AM (#16582667)
I don't really think the rail gauge causes any difficulties for automating the system, though. Tram gauges vary a lot and what manufacturers do is just use the same design and put underneath a different width bogie (wheelset).

(The Finnish rail gauge is in fact nominally different from the current one in Russia, because USSR changed from "imperialist" 1524 mm to "metric" 1520 mm between 1970 and 1990; the trains are in practice compatible, though.)

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