Re: National guage standardisation - why 4'8.5"?

["David Bennetts" <davibenn@ozemail.com.au>]

With hindsight, I feel it probably would have been better to choose 3'6"
gauge. Then you wouldn't have had to worry about as many changes of gauge
which were around for so many years when travelling Sydney - Perth.  One
hundred years down the track, we're still  running trains which could do
everything on 3'6" that they presently do on standard gauge.   3'6" gauge is
considerably cheaper to build and maintain, if you look at Queensland now
they run faster trains on a good 3'6" track than most of NSW, and
practically all Victoria and South can do on a wider gauge maintained to
mediocre standard.

Regards

David Bennetts