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

["Dave Proctor" <daproc@spambait.ozemail.com.au>]

"Bradley Torr" <truenorth@one.net.au.SPAMTRAP> wrote in message
01c0c661$c2afc380$dc2365cb@default">news:01c0c661$c2afc380$dc2365cb@default...
> I just have a question that's bugging me - when PM Andrew Fisher started
> building the Trans-Australian Railway in 1912 (or whatever year it was),
> why did the Commonwealth Railways engineers choose 4'8.5" for the railway,
> and all subsequent CR projects, right up to the Melbourne to Adelaide
> standardisation in the 1990's?
>
> Out of the five mainland states, two had 3'6" (WA and QLD), two had 5'3"
> (VIC and SA) and only one had 4'8.5" (NSW).

Three had 3'6" - WA, SA and Qld.

> I would have chosen 5'3" had I been a CR engineer way back then. Why?
> Because two states already had it, and 5'3" from Port Augusta to
Kalgoorlie
> would have been a logical extension of South Australia's system.

What about the SA 3'6" system - not sure where it ran to and from, but there
was definitely some 3'6" between Adelaide and Port Augusta.

Dave