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James Shields · 04-03-2006, 10:53

Much of Europe and the world use standard gauge (which dates back to Louis Stephenson's Rocket). We had it here on the Dublin and Kingstown railway until Irish gauge was standardised.

You can find a more comprehensive list here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_gauge

Spain uses 5'5.5" (or six catalan feet), but there is a facility for gauge shifting specially designed bogies at one of the crossings. Some high speed lines connecting Spain and France have been built to standard gauge.

Loading gauge is different to track gauge, and determines the size of trains that can run on the tracks. Much of Europe uses the same track gauge as the UK, but has a larger loading gauge so European trains won't fit on UK lines. The newer high speed link to the Channel tunnel is built to European loading gauge, so in the future we could see French TGVs or German ICEs showing up in London.

04-03-2006, 10:53	#18
James Shields Member Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Drogheda, Ireland Posts: 1,275	Much of Europe and the world use standard gauge (which dates back to Louis Stephenson's Rocket). We had it here on the Dublin and Kingstown railway until Irish gauge was standardised. You can find a more comprehensive list here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_gauge Spain uses 5'5.5" (or six catalan feet), but there is a facility for gauge shifting specially designed bogies at one of the crossings. Some high speed lines connecting Spain and France have been built to standard gauge. Loading gauge is different to track gauge, and determines the size of trains that can run on the tracks. Much of Europe uses the same track gauge as the UK, but has a larger loading gauge so European trains won't fit on UK lines. The newer high speed link to the Channel tunnel is built to European loading gauge, so in the future we could see French TGVs or German ICEs showing up in London.