I've always thought Erie's broad gauge was a great idea. Not so huge as to be impractical, yet large enough to make a difference. The extra clearance would have been a great asset for big loads.

As for the cost comparisions in Australia, it would be interesting to see the numbers. If it was purely based on size and material used, then narrow gauge would be cheaper, since the ties could be smaller and the track use less ballast etc. So obviously there's other factors involved. Possibly the standard gauge stuff is cheaper because there's more of it made? Starting from a level playing field, I wonder if things would be different?

There's one thing I recall from the whole "Hitler's Super Gauge" that struck me as being the most important difference. Imagine a flatcar wide enough to park an autmobile on sideways. Suddenly you've gone from "circus style" loading to "roll on-roll off" where you can quickly and easily load and unload cars, and most importantly, only those cars that you choose to unload.

I wonder what effect that would have had? Would we have seen "land ferries" where you drive you car onto the flatcar then ride the train for a couple hours to your destination? The train could start in Boston and head down the coast, stopping at each big city in turn.

How many more folks would travel by rail, if you didn't have the "now what?" problem when you got to the destination station? Kind of like the Channle Tunnel trains, but greatly expanded.

That seems like it was the biggest missed opportunity of the whole thing.

Good point, one that surely must have been considered by the Germans at the time. I know they had serious problems moving equipment by rail in WW2 (other than being under constant aerial attack during the day by 1944). A lot of their armor couldn’t travel by rail without a lot of work first. For example, several classes of their larger tanks had to have completely different tracks to ride on DR flatcars. Anyone who’s ever served in a mechanized unit know what a royal pain that it to replace a set of tracks on a tank. Their larger armor could not roll off the flats and then immediately into battle and that seriously hindered their war effort as much of their armor was mechanically unreliable (and in much smaller numbers than allied vehicles) and broke down often. They couldn’t drive a King Tiger or Elephant tank destroyer very far without it breaking down, unlike the more mobile, more reliable (and much lighter) allied armor. They also routinely gutted their field logistical support for more trigger pullers, but that’s a totally different topic.

Another interesting story about Hitler’s railroads (super and regular gauge);

During the war the Germans would unload their tanks from the trains and carefully guard them against sabotage. Then they would park the train nearby but with less of a guard. The allies learned this from the resistance fighters. An ingenious solution was found, the allies air dropped bags of grit to the resistance (easy to airdrop, easy to hide, easy to dispose of if necessary). The resistance fighters then poured the grit into the journal boxes of the lightly guarded trains. Hard to detect when the train is standing (or moving in switching operations). But when the Germans loaded up their tanks and tried to rush them up to the front all H—L broke loose!!!

Nothing a super gauge railroad could do about tactics like these.

Cheers, Kevin.