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3 ft (914 mm) gauge railways became the dominant narrow gauge throughout the United States from the Boston, Revere Beach and Lynn Railroad of Massachusetts to the Pacific Coast Railway of California. The gauge was also used by the Oahu Railway and Land Company of Hawaii , the White Pass and Yukon Route of Alaska and the East Broad Top Railroad ...
The Panama Railroad was originally 5 ft (1,524 mm) as in much of the Southern United States. This gauge was converted to 1,435 mm ( 4 ft 8 + 1 ⁄ 2 in ) when the line was rebuilt in 2000. Nowadays only the ship handling trains along the Panama Canal , called mules , still have the 150 cm / 5 ft track.
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 ...
A global track gauge map; A history of track gauge Archived 4 December 2008 at the Wayback Machine by George W. Hilton "Railroad Gauge Width". Archived from the original on 17 July 2012. – A list of railway gauges used or being used worldwide, including gauges that are obsolete.
The Oahu Railway and Land Company was the largest narrow-gauge class-one common-carrier railway in the US (at the time of its dissolution in 1947), and the only US narrow-gauge railroad to use signals. The OR&L used Automatic Block Signals, or ABS on their double track mainline between Honolulu and Waipahu, a total of 12.9 miles (20.8 km), and ...
The flat bottomed rail invented by Robert L. Stevens in 1830 was initially spiked directly to wooden sleepers, later tie plates were used to spread the load and also keep the rail in gauge with inbuilt shoulders in the plate. Outside North America a wide variety of spring based fastening systems were later introduced in combination with ...
Railways with a railway track gauge of 5 ft (1,524 mm) first appeared in the United Kingdom and the United States. This gauge became commonly known as "Russian gauge", because the government of the Russian Empire chose it in 1843. Former areas and states of the Empire (such as Finland) have inherited this standard. [1]
A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge narrower than 1,435 mm (4 ft 8 + 1 ⁄ 2 in) standard gauge. Most narrow-gauge railways are between 600 mm ( 1 ft 11 + 5 ⁄ 8 in ) and 1,067 mm ( 3 ft 6 in ).