Track gauge in the United States

Chartered in 1832, its first section opening in 1841, the Erie's promoters and early engineers believed it would be so busy that wider gauged tracks would be required for locomotives much larger (and therefore more powerful) than usual to pull the expected very long and heavy trains.

Major cities including Rochester, Syracuse, Utica, and Albany all were connected by six foot gauged railroads extending from Elmira and Binghamton on the New York and Erie mainline.

Morris, the Albany and Susquehanna (later part of the Delaware and Hudson), the Elmira, Jefferson & Canandaigua (later the Northern Central, becoming part of the Pennsylvania Railroad), the Rochester & Genesee Valley, the Canandaigua and Niagara Falls (initially Erie controlled, later part of the New York Central railroad's Peanut Route along the shoreline of Lake Ontario), and even the mainline of rival, and future (1960) merger partner, the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western (The Lackawanna also had a significant portion of its six-foot gauge trackage in Pennsylvania and New Jersey).

The rapid transit segment of the system covers 109 miles (175 km) of double track in revenue service with additional sidings and maintenance facilities.

This configuration allowed for wider rolling stock that could more efficiently accommodate cotton bales, the most commonly transported good in the South at the time.

The 4 ft 10+7⁄8 in (1,495 mm) broad gauge was adopted to allow passage of non-rail carriages and wagons along the rails instead of along muddy streets.

The gauge was also used by the Oahu Railway and Land Company of Hawaii, the White Pass and Yukon Route of Alaska and the East Broad Top Railroad of Pennsylvania, which operates as of 2022.

[16][17] In the early days of rail transport in the United States, railroads tended to be built out of coastal cities into the rural interior and hinterland and systems did not connect.

When American railroad tracks extended to the point that they began to interconnect, it became clear that a single nationwide gauge would be beneficial.

Break of gauge would prove to be a nightmare during the American Civil War (1861–65), often hindering the Confederacy's ability to move goods efficiently over long distances.

Following the Civil War, trade between the South and North grew sufficiently large that the break of gauge became a major economic nuisance, impeding through shipments.

[20] These effects were especially strong on short routes, where breaks in gauge were more expensive relative to the total cost and duration of carriage.

However, the data indicate that the gauge change had no effect on total shipments, likely as a result of anticompetitive conduct by Southern freight carriers that prevented the railroads' cost-savings from being passed through to their prices.

This research suggests that had Southern carriers not been colluding, the gauge change would have generated a sharp reduction in freight rates and immediate growth in trade between the North and South.