ROMAN RAILWAY TRACKS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 April 1940, Page 6

ROMAN RAILWAY TRACKS

STEPHENSON’S EXPERIMENTS RECALLED. The chariots of the Romans made ruts exactly 4ft 81in apart. That was over 2000 years ago. Today, the modern streamline railway express runs on rails exactly 4ft B'.in apart. At first sight this appears to be an astonishing coincidence. Actually the one is the direct consequence of the other. When George Stephenson carried out his experiment near Newcastle there were many old chariot tracks which had existed from the time of the Roman invasion of Britain. To save expense. Stephenson laid his first rails along these old tracks and designed the position of his wheels to run on this gauge. As other British railways were planned and developed, this first existing and satisfactory gauge was adopted, and has remained unaltered. In India the standard gauge is 3ft 3'.in: in New Zealand, and most of South Africa. Australia. Egypt and the Sudan it is 3ft. (tin; in the United States 6ft. The gauge of most tram tracks also are 4ft k'liii. The wider the distance between the rails, the less likelihood is there of the train leaving the track al curves.