[Air-l] Railway gauge

[Ken Friedman]

Friends,

The Snopes article on railway gauge is correct as far as it goes,

  http://www.snopes2.com/history/american/gauge.htm

but it doesn't cover all the ground. Railway gauge has never been
uniform anywhere. To this day, there remain multiple widths of
railway track in use that prevent smooth transfer among systems
between blocs of nations, between nations, and even -- in some
cases -- between parts of single nations.

A good case in point is the Australian railway network, first built
by British expatriate engineers. Australia runs on four different
track widths. So do the Indian railways, also built by British
engineers, and the Pakistani railroads use three different widths
of track line. Even though 60% of the world's track is based on
the original gauge of the Liverpool and Manchester railroad, there
have always been many exceptions. Even today, Russia and Spain
run wider track, Japan narrower.

This urban legend also fails to account for different widths of chariot,
and the different kinds and widths of horse-drawn and ox-drawn
carriages that travelled European roads during the centuries between
Rome and the railways.) were several width of goes back to the
Roman chariot. Railway width obviously has little to do with the
width of a Roman chariot.

It is also notable that much railway width was never even based on
the first British railways.

Ken

-- 

Ken Friedman, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Leadership and Strategic Design
Department of Technology and Knowledge Management
Norwegian School of Management

Visiting Professor
Advanced Research Institute
School of Art and Design
Staffordshire University