Track gauge

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Minimum   Minimum   Fifteen inch 381 mm (15 in) Narrow   600 mm Two foot Two foot three inch 600 mm 610 mm 686 mm (1 ft 11+5⁄8 in) (2 ft) (2 ft 3 in)   750 mm Bosnian gauge Two foot six inch 750 mm 760 mm 762 mm (2 ft 5+1⁄2 in) (2 ft 5+15⁄16 in) (2 ft 6 in)   Swedish three foot 900 mm Three foot Italian metre 891 mm 900 mm 914 mm 950 mm (2 ft 11+3⁄32 in) (2 ft 11+7⁄16 in) (3 ft) (3 ft1+13⁄32 in)   Metre 1,000 mm (3 ft 3+3⁄8 in)   Three foot six inch 1,067 mm (3 ft 6 in)   Four foot 1,219 mm (4 ft 0 in)   Four foot six inch 1,372 mm (4 ft 6 in)   1432 mm 1,432 mm (4 ft 8+3⁄8 in)   Standard 1,435 mm (4 ft 8+1⁄2 in) Broad   Italian broad gauge Dresden gauge 1,445 mm 1,450 mm (4 ft 8+7⁄8 in) (4 ft 9+3⁄32 in)   Leipzig gauge 1,458 mm (4 ft 9+13⁄32 in)   Toronto gauge 1,495 mm (4 ft 10+7⁄8 in)   1520 mm Five foot 1,520 mm 1,524 mm (4 ft 11+27⁄32 in) (5 ft)   Pennsylvania gauge Pennsylvania gauge Five foot three inch 1,581 mm 1,588 mm 1,600 mm (5 ft 2+1⁄4 in) (5 ft 2+1⁄2 in) (5 ft 3 in)   Baltimore gauge 1,638 mm (5 ft 4+1⁄2 in)   Iberian gauge Five foot six inch 1,668 mm 1,676 mm (5 ft 5+21⁄32 in) (5 ft 6 in)   Six foot 1,829 mm (6 ft)   Brunel 2,140 mm (7 ft 1⁄4 in)
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Bosnian-gauge railways are railways with track gauge of 760 mm (2 ft 5+15⁄16 in).^[1][2] These were found extensively in the former Austro-Hungarian Empire as a standardised form of narrow gauge. The name is also used for lines of the same gauge outside Bosnia, for example in Austria.^[3] Similar track gauges are the 2 ft 6 in (762 mm) and 750 mm (2 ft 5+1⁄2 in) gauge.

History

After a British proposal the 1878 Berlin Congress permitted Austria-Hungary to occupy and govern Bosnia-Herzegovina instead of Turkey, the 190 km (120 mi) long Brod–Zenica military railway was built to support manoeuvres and supply troops. It was completed in 1879, using the 760 mm (2 ft 5+15⁄16 in) temporary tracks and rolling stock used during the construction of the recently finished Temesvár–Orsova line. The Zenica–Sarajevo extension opened in 1882, with a loading gauge the same as that used on 1,000 mm (3 ft 3+3⁄8 in) gauge railways, which was thought to be sufficient for general traffic including passenger services.^[4]

The Brod–Zenica–Sarajevo Bosna Bahn provided the basis for the narrow-gauge railway network which was later established in Bosnia-Herzegovina. In barely two decades a national 760 mm network was built. By the 1890s this stretched through Mostar to the Dalmatian border at Metkovic, and to Gruž, a suburb of Dubrovnik, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. This narrow gauge main line carried much heavier traffic than many of the minor 1,435 mm (4 ft 8+1⁄2 in) standard gauge main lines across the Austro-Hungarian Empire. At the time of their introduction, the Bosnia-Herzegovian National Railways' 2-4-2 express locomotives of 1894-96 were the fastest narrow gauge locomotives in Europe, with a 60 km/h (37 mph) permitted top speed.^[4]

The establishment of the fast-growing network, whose length by the start of the 20th centuries exceeded 1,000 km (620 mi) making it the once largest interconnected narrow gauge network^[4] in Europe, secured a high reputation for the Monarchy's engineering corps amongst international professional circles.

It was the success of the Bosnian narrow gauge net which gave impetus after the turn of the century to the large-scale building of 760 mm gauge lines across other territories of the Monarchy. The technical solutions pioneered there were used later on all the narrow-gauge railways of Austria-Hungary.^[4][5]

Railways