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Competitive pressures induced most North American railways to convert to standard gauge by 1880, but Southern railroads retained their distinct, 5 ft (1,524 mm) gauge. In 1884 and 1885, two important railroads connecting Chicago to the South, the Illinois Central and the Mobile and Ohio Railroad , converted to standard gauge, increasing ...
The vast majority of North American railroads are standard gauge (4 ft 8 + 1 ⁄ 2 in / 1,435 mm).Exceptions include some streetcar, subway and rapid transit systems, mining and tunneling operations, and some narrow-gauge lines particularly in the west, e.g. the isolated White Pass and Yukon Route system, and the former Newfoundland Railway.
If the difference between the two gauges is large enough – for example between 1,435 mm (4 ft 8 + 1 ⁄ 2 in) standard gauge and 3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm) – three-rail dual-gauge is possible, but if not – for example between 3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm) and 1,000 mm (3 ft 3 + 3 ⁄ 8 in) metre gauge – four rails must be used. Dual-gauge rail lines ...
By 1927 the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway had a track car in operation followed by the Estrada de Ferro Central do Brasil in 1929. These two cars were built by Baldwin using the gyroscope technology of Sperry Corporation. [2] The first track geometry car in Germany appeared in 1929 and was operated by Deutsche Reichsbahn.
However, although Great Britain had early adopted a standard gauge of 4 ft 8 + 1 ⁄ 2 in (1,435 mm), once Americans started building locomotives, they experimented with different gauges, resulting in the standard gauge, or a close approximation, being adopted in the Northeast and Midwest U.S., but a 5 ft (1,524 mm) gauge in the South, and a 5 ...
Track gauge or rail gauge (also known as track gage in North America [8]) is the distance between the inner sides (gauge sides) of the heads of the two load bearing rails that make up a single railway line. Each country uses different gauges for different types of trains.
See Narrow-gauge railways in Denmark: 686 mm: 2 ft 3 in: See List of 2 ft 3 in gauge railways: 693 mm: 2 ft 3 + 9 ⁄ 32 in: Sweden: 28 Swedish inches. [28] Several railways. 700 mm 2 ft 3 + 9 ⁄ 16 in: Denmark See Narrow-gauge railways in Denmark and Narrow-gauge railways in Europe. Common for sugar beet or sugar cane railways and peat railways.
During the "gauge war" with the Great Western Railway, standard gauge was called "narrow gauge", in contrast to the Great Western's 7 ft 1 ⁄ 4 in (2,140 mm) broad gauge. The modern use of the term "narrow gauge" for gauges less than standard did not arise for many years, until the first such locomotive-hauled passenger railway, the Ffestiniog ...