Track gauge as a colonial decision

Assembled from 14 blocks · 1 evidence · 9 related

1. Story
2. Gauge is chosen once, early, usually to save money, and then cannot be changed without rebuilding everything. The Cape Colony adopted 1,067 mm in 1873 — narrower than standard, wider than the 762 mm some argued for — after its chief railway engineer opposed going narrower on the grounds that cheap construction would be paid back in expensive operation. The same 1,067 mm went to Australia's Central Australia Railway and much of southern Africa. Russia built at a broad gauge, which is why through carriages must be regauged at the Chinese and European frontiers to this day. Every luxury train in this Journey is riding a nineteenth-century capital-cost calculation it cannot revisit: the Blue Train and Rovos are Cape gauge because the Cape Colony was in a hurry in 1873.
3. Knowledge
4. Track gauge as a colonial decision
5. Connections
6. The Blue Train
7. Rovos Rail
8. The Ghan
9. The Union Limited and Union Express begin running to the mail ships
10. The Ghan begins running on the Central Australia Railway
11. The last narrow-gauge Ghan leaves Marree
12. Rovos Rail runs its first train
13. Evidence
14. Supports the Cape Colony's 1873 adoption of the 1,067 mm gauge over both 1,435 mm standard and a proposed 762 mm narrow gauge, and Chief Railway Engineer W. G. Brounger's argument that lower construction cost would be repaid in higher operating cost. V55 verification basis: substance carried in attributed search results; the article was not fetched and no Cape Government Railways record was consulted.