They certainly don't use the British gauge of 1435 mm. The Irish rail gauge is 1600 mm (5ft 3in in earlier years). The difference between the two is 0.2 mm and since the tolerance on railway lines is of the order of 5 mm, the two are interchangeable. I sometimes wonder whether or not the engineer who specified 5ft 3in for Irish railways at some time in the nineteenth century was secretly pro-metric.
_____ From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Stephen Humphreys Sent: 07 November 2009 20:35 To: U.S. Metric Association Subject: [USMA:46132] Re: Ireland I wonder if Ireland use British trains on their train network? _____ From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Subject: [USMA:46131] Re: Ireland Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2009 20:36:30 +0100 When I was in Ireland this summer I saw one strange thing: Irish Rail is renewing the distance markers along the railways but they have not been changed to kilometres. So I saw a lot of new markers, all in miles! Totally contrary what has been done on the roads. Maybe Tom has an explanation for that. The shops that sell carpets, tiles etc. still oppose metric. I have to see the first shop of that kind in Ireland which uses metric units rationally. Some shops give the dimensions of carpets in metric and the price in euros per square yard! It is probably marketing nonsense that decrees that the square yard be used, as pricing by the square metre looks more expensive. ----- Original Message ----- From: [email protected] To: U.S. Metric <mailto:[email protected]> Association Cc: U.S. Metric <mailto:[email protected]> Association Sent: Thursday, 2009, November 05 17:33 Subject: [USMA:46117] Re: Ireland So, nu ??? What did you observe there regarding metric usage? :-) ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bill Hooper" <[email protected]> To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, November 4, 2009 6:00:39 PM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific Subject: [USMA:46116] Ireland Just got back from Ireland and re-subscribed to this list. _____ New Windows 7: Find the right PC for you. Learn more. <http://www.microsoft.com/uk/windows/buy/>
