Track Gauge - Pioneers

Pioneers

  • 1,435 mm (4 ft 8 1⁄2 in) - 1825 - adopted by George Stephenson because it was already in use and seemed reasonable. In 2012, the Heaviest trains, Longest trains and Fastest trains in the World operate on this gauge.
  • 2,140 mm (7 ft 0 1⁄4 in) - 1838 - scientifically determined by I. K. Brunel
  • 597 mm (1 ft 11 1⁄2 in) - 1836 - pioneered by Festiniog Railway for mountainous terrain - often equated as 610 mm (2 ft) gauge.
  • 1,600 mm (5 ft 3 in) - 1840s - pioneered in Ireland as a compromise
  • 1,676 mm (5 ft 6 in) - 1853 - pioneered by Lord Dalhousie in India
  • 1,067 mm (3 ft 6 in) - 1870s - pioneered by Carl Pihl in Norway to reduce costs
  • 762 mm (2 ft 6 in) - 1887 - pioneered by Everard Calthrop to reduce costs.

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Famous quotes containing the word pioneers:

    The emancipation of today displays itself mainly in cigarettes and shorts. There is even a reaction from the ideal of an intellectual and emancipated womanhood, for which the pioneers toiled and suffered, to be seen in painted lips and nails, and the return of trailing skirts and other absurdities of dress which betoken the slave-woman’s intelligent companionship.
    Sylvia Pankhurst (1882–1960)

    Printer, philosopher, scientist, author and patriot, impeccable husband and citizen, why isn’t he an archetype? Pioneers, Oh Pioneers! Benjamin was one of the greatest pioneers of the United States. Yet we just can’t do with him. What’s wrong with him then? Or what’s wrong with us?
    —D.H. (David Herbert)

    We are the pioneers of the world; the advance-guard, sent on through the wilderness of untried things, to break a new path in the New World that is ours.
    Herman Melville (1819–1891)