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

["Ted Gay" <tedgay@bigpond.com>]

"Peter Homann" <"peter.homann"@@prr.org.au> wrote in message
9bg5rj$6jm@nntpb.cb.lucent.com">news:9bg5rj$6jm@nntpb.cb.lucent.com...
> David Bennetts wrote:
>
> > 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
>
> Agreed, plus look at South Africa for an example of excellent use of 3'6"
> (sorry, 1067mm).
> Locos and loading gauges on 3'6" make some of Australia's trains look
piddling,
> with the exception of Hammersley.
> Anyway, we've got 1485mm now, let's be happy and move on.
>
Shouldn't that be 1435mm ?
Ted