More useless geek type info to chew on; "Standard" gauge, was not the standard gauge in Great Britian until 1846, and only for England 4ft 8in, and Scotland, which was 4ft 6in, Ireland's standard gauge was set to 5ft 3in. This Standard applied to new roads only, existing RRs could maintain and expand using their own prefered gauge. Great Western Railway, at 7ft 1/4in, the last holdout, finally gave in and converted its entire network to standard gauge in 1892, almost fifty years later. In North America Originally, various gauges were used in the United States and Canada. Some railways, primarily in the northeast, used standard gauge; others used gauges ranging from 4 ft to 6 ft. Problems began as soon as lines began to meet and in much of the north-eastern United States, standard gauge was adopted. Most Southern states used 5 ft gauge (a broad gauge which later was adopted by Russia for its new railroad and became known as Russian gauge). The Pacific Railway Act of March 3, 1863 specified that the federally funded transcontinental railroad was to use standard gauge and helped to further popularize it among American railroads, although the standard gauge was already in use on many other lines prior to 1863. Following the American Civil War, trade between the South and North grew and the break of gauge became a major economic nuisance. Competitive pressures had forced all the Canadian railways to convert to standard gauge by 1880, and Illinois Central converted its south line to New Orleans to standard gauge in 1881, putting pressure on the southern railways. The Indian gauge, also called the "Provincial gauge" or "Texas gauge" of 5 ft 6 in, was used by the New Orleans, Opelousas and Great Western Railroad (NOO&GW) until 1872, the Texas and New Orleans Railroad until 1876, and the Maine Central Railroad until 1871 (and is currently used by the Bay Area Rapid Transit System). The Erie Railroad was originally 6 ft gauge, while adjacent railroads used the 4 ft 10 in or Ohio gauge. This led to the Erie Gauge War in 1853-54 when the Erie mayor and citizens temporarily prevented a gauge standardization, as there would then be less trans-shipping work and through passengers would no longer have to stopover at Erie. In the early days of rail transport in the United States, railroads tended to be built out of coastal cities into the hinterland, and systems did not connect. Each builder was free to choose its own gauge, although the availability of British-built locomotives encouraged some railroads to be built to standard gauge. As a general rule, southern railroads were built to one or another broad gauge, mostly 5 ft, while northern railroads that were not standard-gauge tended to be narrow-gauge. Most of the original track in Ohio was built in 4 ft 10 in gauge, and special compromise cars were able to run on both this track and standard gauge track. When American railroads' track extended to the point that they began to interconnect, it became clear that a single nationwide gauge would be a good idea. In 1886, the southern railroads agreed to coordinate changing gauge on all their tracks. After considerable debate and planning, most of the southern rail network was converted from 5 ft gauge to 4 ft 9 in gauge, then the standard of the Pennsylvania Railroad, over two remarkable days beginning on Monday, May 31, 1886. Over a period of 36 hours, tens of thousands of workers pulled the spikes from the west rail of all the broad gauge lines in the South, moved them 3 in east and spiked them back in place. The new gauge was close enough that standard gauge equipment could run on it without problem. By June 1886, all major railroads in North America were using approximately the same gauge. The final conversion to true standard gauge took place gradually as track was maintained. In modern uses certain isolated occurrences of non-standard gauges can still be found, such as the 5 ft 2+1⁄4 in and 5 ft 2+1⁄2 in gauge tracks of the Philadelphia streetcars, the Philadelphia Market-Frankford subway cars, Pittsburgh Light Rail and the New Orleans streetcars. The Bay Area Rapid Transit system in the San Francisco Bay Area, chose 5 ft 6 gauge. The San Francisco cable cars use a narrow gauge of 3 ft 6 in. The Los Angeles Railway and the San Diego Electric Railway use 3 ft 6 in.
I'm afraid I agree with the snopes analysis. Some of the very first attempts at "railway" travel were carriages on rails pulled by horses. It would be natural to make the rails ABOUT the same width as needed to accommodate two horses width. When the loco was first being invented, I don't think people had a great clue of the vast tonnage that could be eventually moved. And what's the best alternative to about two horses? Narrower or wider? It would appear many railroads preferred narrower. But even narrow gauge is somewhere near two horses width. But how narrow can you go before you get too tippy when pulling a two mile train?
In several places around the world trains of up to 200+ cars are operated on metre or 3'6" gauge, and here in Queensland we hold the Australian rail speed record of 217kmh (just under 135mph) on 3'6" gauge. On the 2' gauge sugar cane railways up in north Queensland they run 1km long, 2000 tonne trains.
Snopes is right. None of this story is true. The SRBs are about 12 feet in diameter, which is more than slightly wider than 4' 8.5". This isn't even remotely true. The Roman Empire did not use chariots for warfare. They were used only for racing (using 3 or 4 horses) and ceremonial processions (using anything up to 10 horses). In most of the Mediterranean civilizations, cavalry replaced chariots for warfare during the Iron Age (before the founding of Rome). If you want an authoritative source and are not content to rely on Snopes, have a read of Ways of the World: A History of the World's Roads and of the Vehicles That Used Them by M.G. Lay (Rutgers University Press, 1999) and Tracks across Continents, Paths through History: The Economic Dynamics of Standardization in Railway Gauge by D.J. Puffert (University of Chicago Press, 2009). Cheers David
Since the 'N' in N-scale came from 'N'ine millimeters, we can't change the gauge of the track, so we need to lobby the manufacturers to change the scale from 1/160 to 1/159.46 so the scale will match the gauge! :tb-biggrin:
Not so fast! :tb-biggrin: We have to do this the correct way. Appoint a committee that will take a good look at the horse ass. Take measurements. Multiply. Correct and change the prototype. Only after that we can come to the correct gauge for N. ( the other scales have to change too. ) :tb-confused: That should be fun. Ron.
Does that mean the floor is open for suggestions on whom should be nominated to the Horse's Ass Committee? :zip:
