Tracks across Continents, Paths through History: The Economic Dynamics of Standardization in Railway Gauge (review)

Behind this somewhat cumbersome title is hidden a gem of a book that deserves to be known in a much wider circle than that of economists. Douglas Puffert's 1991 dissertation was on the diversity of railway gauges, and since then he has had an abiding interest in the subject. The question of the origins of the "Stephenson" railway gauge of 4 feet, 8 inches (1,435 mm) has been hotly debated over the past centuries, and all sorts of so-called reasonable explanations have been put forward. Puffert examines each of them and comes to a simple but most acceptable conclusion. The gauge that George Stephenson, the railway pioneer, used was simply the one that he was accustomed to in his early mining experience in Northumberland. It had no special technical merits, and indeed it soon turned out that a wider gauge would have better accommodated the machinery of the steam locomotive inside the cramped space between the frames. But by then the Liverpool & Manchester Railway, engineered by Stephenson with "his" gauge, had shown the way, and his influence in the world was such that most countries followed his lead. Other engineers advocated wider gauges, and many lines worldwide were built with gauges ranging from 5 to 7 feet. Some of these were later converted, generally at great expense; others remained nonstandard, sometimes for supposedly military reasons, as in the case of Russia. Breaks of gauge were a nuisance, although quite elaborate and technically advanced systems were developed to facilitate through traffic without actual unloading of wagons.

Country by country, Puffert examines the choices of gauge, beginning with Great Britain. North America turns out to have had a wide array of gauges, some with only small differences; others, such as the Erie, had a gauge of 6 feet. In hindsight, engineers—or politicians—choosing a gauge differing from standard may have made grave mistakes, but Puffert explains that most of them simply lacked the foresight that one day all these little local lines would become part of a national network. In Australia, he explains the many different gauges as the work of conceited and cocksure engineers in charge—men who, without compelling technical reason, chose one or the other gauge, resulting in the present-day mess in that country.

Puffert is rather negative about the choice of a narrow gauge for economic or technical reasons. More often than not the financial advantage turned out to be less substantial than expected, with the result that many of those narrow-gauge lines were either converted or completely abandoned. Yet in some countries, notably South Africa, Japan, and colonial Indonesia, a technically superior network was developed on the narrow gauge (1,067 mm). Puffert rightly stresses that in Japan and South Africa the restrictions of the narrow gauge in use there are now being felt, although he does not mention that the loading gauge of South African Railways (that is, the permissible size of a passenger car or container) is bigger than the loading gauge of British Railways, despite the narrower track gauge.

While this will remain the standard work on railway gauges, there are some comments to be made. In some of his discussions of the use of narrow gauges, Puffert could have made a distinction between light railways and the steam tramways in many European countries, especially in the Netherlands and Belgium. These served a different purpose, as feeders to the standard-gauge railways, and were quite successful in their limited scope. Even now, a number are still in use, having been electrified and modernized. The many lines in the Netherlands East Indies built by the government on the 600- or 800-mm gauge were never meant as public railways, but mostly served—and some still serve—the extensive rubber and sugar plantations. This failure to draw a distinction may have resulted partly from Puffert's use of...