Railroads really did not standardize on 4 feet 8 1/2 inches until 1886, when all the remaining 5-foot railroads in the South were switched to 4 feet 8 1/2 inches. And the main reason was because all the little feeder lines were being snarfed up by the robber barrons, who wanted them to generate traffic for their trunk lines, thus they had to be the same width as their trunk lines to ease switching rail cars. In a sense, 4 feet 8 1/2 inches “won” because the Northeastern railroad tycoons won — they used their direct access to the New York stock markets and Boston banks to drive their opponents who had other rail gauges out of business or buy them out, or at the very least arrive at an “understanding” with them such as with Leland Stanford’s Southern Pacific. It was the Betamax vs. VHS battle writ large, and as with Betamax vs. VHS, the inferior gauge won… if the lines with 5 foot spacing had won, it would be *much* easier to ship oversized loads today. Alas, that’s not how it happened…
– Badtux the Rail Fan Penguin
.-= ´s last blog ..I am becoming ordinary =-.