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

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

"David Bennetts" <davibenn@ozemail.com.au> wrote in message
z1KC6.2941$EQ3.94176@ozemail.com.au">news:z1KC6.2941$EQ3.94176@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,

Not if you intend to run a high-speed, high-capacity railway. The only
reason NG was cheaper than SG or BG was because the curves could be on a
reduced radii, etc. and none of this amounts to much any more.

> if you look at Queensland now
> they run faster trains on a good 3'6" track than most of NSW,

Purely because of alignments and electrification, nothing to do with the
gauge. If the same thing had happened in NSW or Victoria, i.e. railways
electrified, deviations put in place, etc., etc., etc. you would see exactly
the same result.

> and
> practically all Victoria and South can do on a wider gauge maintained to
> mediocre standard.

You just knocked your own argument. The infrastructure in NSW and Vic is
maintained to a mediocre standard. upgrade it, with deviations where
necessary, as what happened in Queensland, and you would see a totally
different railway (something like what is in Queensland).

Dave