Friends, The Snopes article on railway gauge is correct as far as it goes, http://www.snopes2.com/history/american/gauge.htm but it doesn't cover all the ground. Railway gauge has never been uniform anywhere. To this day, there remain multiple widths of railway track in use that prevent smooth transfer among systems between blocs of nations, between nations, and even -- in some cases -- between parts of single nations. A good case in point is the Australian railway network, first built by British expatriate engineers. Australia runs on four different track widths. So do the Indian railways, also built by British engineers, and the Pakistani railroads use three different widths of track line. Even though 60% of the world's track is based on the original gauge of the Liverpool and Manchester railroad, there have always been many exceptions. Even today, Russia and Spain run wider track, Japan narrower. This urban legend also fails to account for different widths of chariot, and the different kinds and widths of horse-drawn and ox-drawn carriages that travelled European roads during the centuries between Rome and the railways.) were several width of goes back to the Roman chariot. Railway width obviously has little to do with the width of a Roman chariot. It is also notable that much railway width was never even based on the first British railways. Ken -- Ken Friedman, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Leadership and Strategic Design Department of Technology and Knowledge Management Norwegian School of Management Visiting Professor Advanced Research Institute School of Art and Design Staffordshire University