1863 Act (To Establish Its Gauge)
The act of March 3, 1863 (12 Sta. 807) was:
- AN ACT to establish the gauge of the Pacific railroad and its branches.
- Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the gauge of the Pacific railroad and its branches throughout their whole extent, from the Pacific coast to the Missouri river, shall be, and hereby is, established at four feet eight and one-half inches.
This act set the gauge to be used by the railroads at four feet and eight and one-half inches, a gauge that had previously been used by George Stephenson in England for the Liverpool and Manchester Railway (1830) and was already popular with railroads in the Northeastern states. Due in part to the 1863 Act the gauge would come to be widely (but not universally) adopted in the United States and is known as standard gauge. A common gauge choice allowed easy transfer of cars between different railroad companies and facilitates trackage rights between companies.
Read more about this topic: Pacific Railroad Acts
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—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)