Re: Irish Gauge

["Steven Hurst" <hurste@primus.com.au>]

I think it is fair to say that everyone here, probably already knew this. -
He was asking what influenced the Scotts, the English and the Irish in their
own countries in the first place... :)

> It's actually a classic Englishman, Irishman and Scotsman story.
>
> The colony of New South Wales had an Irish engineer who decided that NSW
> should follow the Irish gauge of 5'3". Companies in other colonies
> (Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania) ordered broad gauge locomotives
> and started to lay track, but NSW cut their engineer's pay and he
> resigned. He was replaced with an English engineer who decided that NSW
> should follow the classic British standard gauge.
>
> Queensland had a Scottish engineer who advocated the colonial narrow gauge
> (3'6") which was cheaper to build.