How Wide Are Railway Tracks?

Conventional railway tracks are two parallel lines about 20 metres (or 60 feet) long. The width of the railways tracks is the distance between the two rails, which is known as a rail gauge. There are three main types of rail gauges, namely, the broad gauge, the standard gauge and the metre gauge. The standard gauge is four feet, eight-and-a-half inches (or 1, 435 millimetres) wide. Broad gauges are of different widths, but they are all wider than the standard railway gauges. Narrow gauges are narrower than standard gauges. A typical narrow gauge is approximately three-and-a-half feet (or 1, 067 millimetres) or less. In terms of millimetres, the widths of broad gauges range from 1, 473 millimetres (the Ohio gauge) to 2, 140 millimetres (the Great Western broad gauge).

The gauge war began in 1846, when the Great Western Railway (GWR) took over the running of the Kennet and Avon Canal, which resulted in the appointment of a Gauge Commission by parliament, which duly suggested that the gauges be changed to the standard gauge.

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