History
Historically, the choice of gauge was partly arbitrary and partly a response to local conditions. Narrow-gauge railways are cheaper to build and can negotiate sharper curves but broad-gauge railways give greater stability and permit higher speeds.
Sometimes railway companies chose their own gauge, such as the Great Western Railway choosing 7 ft ¼in (2,140mm).
Other times, statutes required railways to use a particular gauge, such as the Thomasville, Tallahassee and Gulf Railroad having to use standard gauge.
Read more about this topic: Track Gauge
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“It’s not the sentiments of men which make history but their actions.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)
“You treat world history as a mathematician does mathematics, in which nothing but laws and formulas exist, no reality, no good and evil, no time, no yesterday, no tomorrow, nothing but an eternal, shallow, mathematical present.”
—Hermann Hesse (1877–1962)
“In history as in human life, regret does not bring back a lost moment and a thousand years will not recover something lost in a single hour.”
—Stefan Zweig (18811942)