Re: Gauge change
Author: Michael Mahoney
Date: 02-28-2009 - 17:29
The TGVs between France and Spain are all standard gauge. The gauge change is in the older conventional trains. As I understand it (I've never seen this) the wide-gauge carriages arriving from Spain are put onto a special track that loosens up the wheels and pushes them into standard-gauge position, then tightens them up again. Going the other way, the process is reversed. It apparently takes a little while, but not a huge amount of time.
The locomotives do not need to be changed, because locomotives are changed at the border in any event.
Michael Mahoney