1.
Central Railroad of New Jersey Terminal
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It was also serviced by the Reading Railroad, Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and Lehigh Valley Railroad during various periods in its 78 years of operation. The current terminal building was constructed in 1889 but was abandoned in 1967 and it was later added to the New Jersey Register of Historic Places and incorporated into Liberty State Park. The terminal was one of five passenger railroad terminals lined the Hudson Waterfront during the 19th and 20th centuries. The terminal was built in 1889, replacing an earlier one that had been in use since 1864 and it operated until April 30,1967. The station has been listed on the New Jersey Register of Historic Places, additionally it is a New Jersey State Historic Site. The terminal is part of Liberty State Park, and along with nearby Ellis Island and Statue of Liberty recalls the era of immigration through the Port of New York. It is estimated that around 10.5 million entered the country through the station, the area has long been known as Communipaw, which in the Algonquian language Lenape means big landing place at the side of a river. The first stop west of the station was indeed called Communipaw, the land on which the extensive yards were built was reclaimed, or filled. The terminal itself is next to the Morris Canal Big Basin, the long cobbled road which ends at the terminal is Audrey Zapp Drive, for the environmentalist active in the creation of the park. The main building is designed in a Richardsonian Romanesque style, the intermodal facility contains more than a dozen platforms and several ferry slips. Arriving passengers would walk to the concourse and could either pass through its main waiting room, by-pass it on either side. The ferry slips have also been restored though the structure which housed them has been removed, as have the tracks. The Bush-type trainsheds, the largest ever to be constructed and designed by A. Lincoln Bush, were not part of the original construction, but were built in 1914 and have not been restored. The terminal, along with its docks and yards, was one of several massive terminal complexes that dominated the waterfront of the New York Harbor from the mid 19th to the mid 20th century. Of the two standing, the Hoboken Terminal is the only one still in use. Lines from the station headed to the southwest, for its mainline, the railroad constructed the Newark Bay Bridge to Elizabeth. Its Newark branch cut through Bergen Hill and crossed two bridges at Kearny Point, both rights-of-way in Hudson County are now used by the Hudson Bergen Light Rail, one terminating at West Side Avenue and the other at 8th Street Station in Bayonne. The main ferry from the crossed the river to Liberty Street Ferry Terminal at Liberty and West Streets in Manhattan
2.
Liberty State Park
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Liberty State Park is located on Upper New York Bay in Jersey City, New Jersey, opposite Liberty Island and Ellis Island. The park opened in 1976 to coincide with celebrations and is operated and maintained by the New Jersey Division of Parks. Liberty State Park covers 1,212 acres, the main part of the park is bordered by water on three sides, on the north by the Morris Canal Big Basin and on the south and east by Upper New York Bay. The New Jersey Turnpike Newark Bay Extension marks its western perimeter, most of the parks area is on landfill created by the Central Railroad of New Jersey and the Lehigh Valley Railroad, defunct companies whose lines once terminated there. In the northeast corner of the park is the CRRNJ Terminal, Statue Cruises offers ferries to Statue of Liberty National Monument, Ellis Island and Liberty Island that depart nearby. A 50-foot from the Lehigh Valley Railroad can be found in the park at 40. 709430°N74. 047327°W /40.709430, the long thin pier at the foot of Chapel Avenue that was once part of the park has been demolished. The Peninsula Park lies between the Big Basin of the Morris Canal and the Tidewater Basin in Paulus Hook, the Liberty Landing Marina is located on the Big Basin. Communipaw Cove is part of the 36-acre state nature preserve in the park and is one of the few remaining salt marshes along the Hudson River estuary. The Interpretive Center, designed by architect Michael Graves, is part of the preserve, to the west lies the Interior Natural Area, which is off limits to the public and is being allowed through natural processes to recover from environmental abuse. The park is also the state park in Essex, Hudson. Another section of the park is called Liberty Industrial Park, in the seventeenth century it became part of the colonial province of New Netherland, the patroonship Pavonia. For hundreds of years it was a port for local communities of Bergen, Bergen Township. In the latter half of 19th century small island named Black Tom via landfill projects was joined with the mainland and it became major shipping, manufacturing, and transportation hub within Port of New York and New Jersey, leading to the construction of Communipaw Terminal. It was from this station that many immigrants arriving at Ellis Island spread out across the USA. Construction of the North River Tunnels, containerization, and the Interstate Highway System, the decline of industry, deterioration of rail and maritime infrastructure, and toxic waste, eventually made the area obsolete. Abandoned buildings and brownfields dominated the landscape after the century, though there was still some manufacturing. Audrey Zapp, Theodore Conrad, Morris Pesin and J. Owen Grundy were influential environmentalists and they are remembered by the naming of places and streets along the waterfront. It is estimated the park suffered $20 million in damages during Superstorm Sandy in October 2012, as of August 2015, the CRRNJ Terminal and Nature Interpretive Center remain closed due to storm damage
3.
Jersey City, New Jersey
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Jersey City is the second-most-populous city in the U. S. state of New Jersey after Newark. It is the seat of Hudson County as well as the countys largest city. 7% from the 2010 United States Census, when the citys population was at 247,597, ranking the city the 75th-largest in the nation. Part of the New York metropolitan area, Jersey City is bounded on the east by the Hudson River and Upper New York Bay and on the west by the Hackensack River and Newark Bay. After a peak population of 316,715 measured in the 1930 Census, the land comprising what is now Jersey City was inhabited by the Lenape, a collection of tribes. After spending nine days surveying the area and meeting its inhabitants, by 1621, the Dutch West India Company was organized to manage this new territory and in June 1623, New Netherland became a Dutch province, with headquarters in New Amsterdam. Michael Reyniersz Pauw received a grant as patroon on the condition that he would establish a settlement of not fewer than fifty persons within four years. He chose the west bank of the North River and purchased the land from the Lenape and this grant is dated November 22,1630 and is the earliest known conveyance for what are now Hoboken and Jersey City. Pauw, however, was a landlord who neglected to populate the area and was obliged to sell his holdings back to the Company in 1633. That year, a house was built at Communipaw for Jan Evertsen Bout, superintendent of the colony, during Kiefts War, approximately eighty Lenapes were killed by the Dutch in a massacre at Pavonia on the night of February 25,1643. Scattered communities of farmsteads characterized the Dutch settlements at Pavonia, Communipaw, Harsimus, Paulus Hook, Hoebuck, Awiehaken, and other lands behind Kil van Kull. The first village established on what is now Bergen Square in 1660, among the oldest surviving houses in Jersey City are the Newkirk House, the Van Vorst Farmhouse, and the Van Wagenen House. During the American Revolutionary War, the area was in the hands of the British who controlled New York, in the Battle of Paulus Hook Major Light Horse Harry Lee attacked a British fortification on August 19,1779. During the 19th century, former slaves reached Jersey City on one of the four routes of the Underground Railroad that led to the city. The City of Jersey was incorporated by an act of the New Jersey Legislature on January 28,1820, from portions of Bergen Township, while the area was still a part of Bergen County. The city was reincorporated on January 23,1829, and again on February 22,1838, on February 22,1840, it became part of the newly created Hudson County. Soon after the Civil War, the idea arose of uniting all of the towns of Hudson County east of the Hackensack River into one municipality. A bill was approved by the legislature on April 2,1869. An element of the bill provide that only contiguous towns could be consolidated, while a majority of the voters across the county approved the merger, the only municipalities that had approved the consolidation plan and that adjoined Jersey City were Hudson City and Bergen City
4.
Reporting mark
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A reporting mark is an alphabetic code of one to four letters used to identify owners or lessees of rolling stock and other equipment used on certain railroad networks. In North America the mark, which consists of an code of one to four letters, is stenciled on each piece of equipment. The Association of American Railroads assigns marks to all carriers, under authority granted by the U. S, surface Transportation Board, Transport Canada, and Mexican Government. Under current practice, the first letter must match the initial letter of the railroad name, as it also acts as a Standard Carrier Alpha Code, the reporting mark cannot conflict with codes in use by other nonrail carriers. In another example, the mark for state-funded Amtrak services in California is CDTX because the state transportation agency owns the equipment used in these services. This is why the reporting mark for CSX Transportation, which is a railroad, is CSXT instead of CSX. This often resulted in five-letter reporting marks, an option not otherwise allowed by the AAR, the standard ISO6346 covers identifiers for intermodal containers. When the owner of a mark is taken over by another company. For example, when the Union Pacific Railroad acquired the Chicago and North Western Railway in the 1990s, some companies own several marks that are used to identify different classes of cars, such as boxcars or gondolas. If the acquiring company discontinues the name or mark of the acquired company, occasionally, long-disused marks are suddenly revived by the companies which now own them. For example, in recent years, the Union Pacific Railroad has begun to use the mark CMO on newly built covered hoppers, gondolas, CMO originally belonged to a predecessor of the CNW, which passed it on to them, from which the UP inherited it. Some of these still retain their temporary NYC marks. Because of its size, this list has been split into subpages based on the first letter of the reporting mark, railinc, a subsidiary of the AAR, maintains the active reporting marks for the North American rail industry. Railinc offers a free online look-up of reporting marks and other industry reference files through the Railincs Freight Rail 411 website, a railway vehicle must be registered in a national vehicle register using a 12-digit number derived from the old UIC system of vehicle numbering. The number contains the country in the third and fourth digit. The VKM must not contain special signs or digits, the VKM is preceded by the code for the country, where the vehicle is registered and a hyphen. Some examples, When a vehicle is sold it does not normally be transferred to another register, the Czech railways bought large numbers of coaches from ÖBB. The number remained the same but the VKM changed from A-ÖBB to A-ČD, the UIC introduced a uniform numbering system for their members based on a 12-digit number, largely known as UIC number
5.
New Jersey
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New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania, New Jersey is the fourth-smallest state but the 11th-most populous and the most densely populated of the 50 United States. New Jersey lies entirely within the statistical areas of New York City. New Jersey was inhabited by Native Americans for more than 2,800 years, in the early 17th century, the Dutch and the Swedes made the first European settlements. New Jersey was the site of decisive battles during the American Revolutionary War in the 18th century. In the 19th century, factories in cities such as Camden, Paterson, Newark, Trenton, around 180 million years ago, during the Jurassic Period, New Jersey bordered North Africa. The pressure of the collision between North America and Africa gave rise to the Appalachian Mountains, around 18,000 years ago, the Ice Age resulted in glaciers that reached New Jersey. As the glaciers retreated, they left behind Lake Passaic, as well as rivers, swamps. New Jersey was originally settled by Native Americans, with the Lenni-Lenape being dominant at the time of contact, scheyichbi is the Lenape name for the land that is now New Jersey. The Lenape society was divided into clans that were based upon common female ancestors. These clans were organized into three distinct phratries identified by their animal sign, Turtle, Turkey, and Wolf and they first encountered the Dutch in the early 17th century, and their primary relationship with the Europeans was through fur trade. The Dutch became the first Europeans to lay claim to lands in New Jersey, the Dutch colony of New Netherland consisted of parts of modern Middle Atlantic states. Although the European principle of ownership was not recognized by the Lenape. The first to do so was Michiel Pauw who established a patronship called Pavonia in 1630 along the North River which eventually became the Bergen, peter Minuits purchase of lands along the Delaware River established the colony of New Sweden. During the English Civil War, the Channel Island of Jersey remained loyal to the British Crown and it was from the Royal Square in St. Helier that Charles II of England was proclaimed King in 1649, following the execution of his father, Charles I. The North American lands were divided by Charles II, who gave his brother, the Duke of York, the region between New England and Maryland as a proprietary colony. James then granted the land between the Hudson River and the Delaware River to two friends who had remained loyal through the English Civil War, Sir George Carteret and Lord Berkeley of Stratton, the area was named the Province of New Jersey. Since the states inception, New Jersey has been characterized by ethnic, New England Congregationalists settled alongside Scots Presbyterians and Dutch Reformed migrants
6.
Pennsylvania
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Pennsylvania /ˌpɛnsᵻlˈveɪnjə/, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state located in the northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The Appalachian Mountains run through its middle, Pennsylvania is the 33rd largest, the 5th most populous, and the 9th most densely populated of the 50 United States. The states five most populous cities are Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Allentown, Erie, the state capital, and its ninth-largest city, is Harrisburg. Pennsylvania has 140 miles of shoreline along Lake Erie and the Delaware Estuary. The state is one of the 13 original founding states of the United States, it came into being in 1681 as a result of a land grant to William Penn. Part of Pennsylvania, together with the present State of Delaware, had earlier been organized as the Colony of New Sweden and it was the second state to ratify the United States Constitution, on December 12,1787. Independence Hall, where the United States Declaration of Independence and United States Constitution were drafted, is located in the states largest city of Philadelphia, during the American Civil War, the Battle of Gettysburg, was fought in the south central region of the state. Valley Forge near Philadelphia was General Washingtons headquarters during the winter of 1777–78. Pennsylvania is 170 miles north to south and 283 miles east to west, of a total 46,055 square miles,44,817 square miles are land,490 square miles are inland waters, and 749 square miles are waters in Lake Erie. It is the 33rd largest state in the United States, Pennsylvania has 51 miles of coastline along Lake Erie and 57 miles of shoreline along the Delaware Estuary. Cities include Philadelphia, Reading, Lebanon and Lancaster in the southeast, Pittsburgh in the southwest, the tri-cities of Allentown, Bethlehem, the northeast includes the former anthracite coal mining communities of Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, Pittston City, and Hazleton. Erie is located in the northwest, the state has 5 regions, namely the Allegheny Plateau, Ridge and Valley, Atlantic Coastal Plain, Piedmont, and the Erie Plain. Straddling two major zones, the majority of the state, with the exception of the corner, has a humid continental climate. The largest city, Philadelphia, has characteristics of the humid subtropical climate that covers much of Delaware. Moving toward the interior of the state, the winter climate becomes colder, the number of cloudy days increase. Western areas of the state, particularly locations near Lake Erie, can receive over 100 inches of snowfall annually, the state may be subject to severe weather from spring through summer into fall. Tornadoes occur annually in the state, sometimes in large numbers, the Tuscarora Nation took up temporary residence in the central portion of Pennsylvania ca. Both the Dutch and the English claimed both sides of the Delaware River as part of their lands in America
7.
Conrail
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Conrail, formally the Consolidated Rail Corporation, was the primary Class I railroad in the Northeastern United States between 1976 and 1999. Conrail is a portmanteau of consolidated and rail from the name of the company, the Federal Government created Conrail to take over the potentially profitable lines of multiple bankrupt carriers, including the Penn Central Transportation Company and Erie Lackawanna Railway. With the benefit of regulatory requirements being reduced, Conrail began to turn a profit in the 1980s and was turned over to private investors in 1987. Following Surface Transportation Board approval, CSX and NS took control in August 1998, the old company remains a jointly-owned subsidiary, with CSX and NS owning respectively 42 percent and 58 percent of its stock, corresponding to how much of Conrails assets they acquired. Each parent, however, has a voting interest. The primary asset retained by Conrail is ownership of the three Shared Assets Areas in New Jersey, Philadelphia, and Detroit, both CSX and NS have the right to serve all shippers in these areas, paying Conrail for the cost of maintaining and improving trackage. They also make use of Conrail to perform switching and terminal services within the areas, Conrail also retains various support facilities including maintenance-of-way and training, as well as a 51 percent share in the Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad. In the years leading to 1973, the railroad system of the United States was collapsing. Its largest Eastern railroad, the Penn Central Railroad, had declared bankruptcy in 1970, at its lowest point, PC was losing over $1 million a day and trains were becoming lost all over the railroad. In 1972, Hurricane Agnes damaged the rundown Northeast railway network and threatened the solvency of other railroads, in mid-1973, officials with the bankrupt Penn Central threatened to liquidate and cease operations by years end if they did not receive government aid by October 1. This threat to U. S. freight and passenger traffic galvanized the Congress to quickly create a bill to nationalize the bankrupt railroads, the Association of American Railroads, which opposed nationalization, submitted an alternate proposal for a government-funded private company. Judge Fullam forced the Penn Central to operate into 1974, when, on January 2, after threatening a veto, President Richard Nixon signed the Regional Rail Reorganization Act of 1973 into law. The 3R Act, as it was called, provided funding to the bankrupt railroads. The USRA was incorporated February 1,1974, and Edward G. Jordan, arthur D. Lewis of Eastern Air Lines was appointed chairman April 30, and the remainder of the board was named May 30 and sworn in July 11. Under the 3R Act, the USRA was to create a Final System Plan to decide which lines should be included in the new Consolidated Rail Corporation, unlike most railroad consolidations, only the designated lines were to be taken over. Other lines would be sold to Amtrak, various governments, transportation agencies. Controlled railroads and jointly owned railroads such as Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines, the EL had been formed in 1960 as a merger of the Erie Railroad and Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad. It too was bankrupt, but was somewhat stronger financially than the others and it was ruled reorganizable under Chapter 77 on April 30,1974, but on January 9,1975, with no end to its losses in sight, its trustees reconsidered and asked for inclusion
8.
Norfolk Southern Railway
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The Norfolk Southern Railway is a Class I railroad in the United States. NS is responsible for maintaining 29,000 miles, with the remainder being operated under trackage rights from other parties responsible for maintenance, the common commodity hauled on the railroad is coal from mines in Indiana, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. The railroad also offers the largest intermodal network in eastern North America, NS is a major transporter of domestic and export coal. In Pennsylvania, NS also receives coal through interchange with R. J, corman Railroad/Pennsylvania Lines at Cresson, Pennsylvania, originating in the Clearfield Cluster. Coal transported by NS is thus exported to steel mills and power plants around the world, the company is also a major transporter of auto parts and completed vehicles. It operates intermodal container and TOFC trains, some in conjunction with other railroads, NS was the first railway to employ roadrailers, which are highway truck trailers with interchangeable wheel sets. The Norfolk Southern Railways parent Norfolk Southern Corporation is a Norfolk, Norfolk Southern Corporation was incorporated on July 23,1980 in the Commonwealth of Virginia and is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbols NSC. As of October 1,2014 Norfolk Southern Corporations total public stock value was slightly over $34.5 billion, the system began in 1982 with the creation of the Norfolk Southern Corporation, a holding company for the Southern Railway and Norfolk & Western Railway. The new company was given the name of the Norfolk Southern Railway, a line, acquired by SOU in 1974, that served primarily North Carolina. Headquarters for the new NS were established in Norfolk, Virginia, the company suffered a slight embarrassment when the marble headpiece at the buildings entrance was unveiled, which read Norfolk Southern Railway. A new headpiece replaced the erroneous one several weeks later, NS aimed to compete in the eastern United States with CSX Transportation, formed after the Interstate Commerce Commissions 1980 approval of the merger of the Chessie System and the Seaboard System. Norfolk Southerns predecessor railroads date to the early 19th century, the SRs earliest predecessor line was the South Carolina Canal & Rail Road. Chartered in 1827, the South Carolina Canal & Rail Road Company became the first to regularly scheduled passenger train service with the inaugural run of the Best Friend of Charleston in 1830. Another early predecessor, the Richmond & Danville Railroad, was formed in 1847, the R&D ultimately fell on hard times and in 1894, it became a major portion of the new Southern Railway. Financier J. P. Morgan selected veteran railroader Samuel Spencer as president, profitable and innovative, Southern became in 1953 the first major U. S. railroad to completely switch to diesel-electric locomotives from steam. It was acquired by the South Side Railroad in 1854, in the second half of the 20th century, the N&W acquired the Virginian Railway, the Wabash Railway, and the Nickel Plate Road, among others. In 1990, the two merged and formed Norfolk Southern Railway. The system grew with the acquisition of half of Conrail
9.
CSX Transportation
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CSX Transportation is a Class I railroad in the United States. The main subsidiary of the CSX Corporation, the railroad is headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida, CSX operates one of the three Class I railroads serving most of the East Coast, the other two being the Norfolk Southern Railway and Canadian Pacific Railway. It also serves the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec, together CSX and Norfolk Southern Railway have a duopoly over all east-west freight rail traffic east of the Mississippi River. As of October 1,2014, CSXs total public stock value was slightly over $32 billion, CSX Transportation was formed on July 1,1986, by combining the Chessie System and Seaboard System Railroad. The origin of the Chessie System was the former Chesapeake & Ohio Railway, which had merged with the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, on June 6,1998, the STB approved the CSX–NS application and set August 22,1998, as the effective date of its decision. CSX acquired 42 percent of Conrails assets, and NS received the remaining 58 percent, as a result of the transaction, CSXs rail operations grew to include some 3,800 miles of the Conrail system. CSX began operating its trains on its portion of the Conrail network on June 1,1999, CSX now serves much of the eastern U. S. with a few routes into nearby Canadian cities. The name came about during merger talks between Chessie System, Inc. and Seaboard System Railroad, Inc. commonly called Chessie, the company chairmen said it was important for the new name to include neither of those names because it was a partnership. Employees were asked for suggestions, most of which consisted of combinations of the initials, at the same time a temporary shorthand name was needed for discussions with the Interstate Commerce Commission. CSC was chosen but belonged to a company in Virginia. The lawyers decided to use CSX, and the name stuck, in the public announcement, it was said that CSX is singularly appropriate. C can stand for Chessie, S for Seaboard, and X, however, in the August 9,2016 article on the Railway Age website stated that. And the X was for Consolidated, the T had to be added to CSX when used as a reporting mark because reporting marks that end in X means that the car is owned by a leasing company or private car owner. Its current slogan, How Tomorrow Moves, appeared in 2008, in 2014 Canadian Pacific Railway approached CSX with an offer to merge the two companies, but CSX declined and in 2015 Canadian Pacific made an attempt to purchase and merge with Norfolk Southern. In 2017 CSX announced Hunter Harrison as its new chief executive, CSX added 5 new directors to their board, including Harrison and Mantle Ridge founder Paul Hilal. Mantle Ridge owns 4.9 percent of CSX, CSX operates two regions of five divisions each, the Northern, based in Calumet City, Illinois, and Southern, based in Jacksonville, Florida. The CEO of CSX is Hunter Harrison as of Feb 2017, o823, Q740 and Q741, Q743, and Q745—which consists of Tropicana cars that carry fresh orange juice between Bradenton, Florida, and the Greenville section of Jersey City, New Jersey. The train also runs from Bradenton to Fort Pierce, Florida, in the 21st century, the Juice Train has been studied as a model of efficient rail transportation that can compete with trucks and other modes in the perishable-goods trade
10.
Track gauge
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In rail transport, track gauge is the spacing of the rails on a railway track and is measured between the inner faces of the load-bearing rails. All vehicles on a network must have running gear that is compatible with the track gauge, as the dominant parameter determining interoperability, it is still frequently used as a descriptor of a route or network. There is a distinction between the gauge and actual gauge at some locality, due to divergence of track components from the nominal. Railway engineers use a device, like a caliper, to measure the actual gauge, the nominal track gauge is the distance between the inner faces of the rails. In current practice, it is specified at a distance below the rail head as the inner faces of the rail head are not necessarily vertical. In some cases in the earliest days of railways, the company saw itself as an infrastructure provider only. Colloquially the wagons might be referred to as four-foot gauge wagons, say and this nominal value does not equate to the flange spacing, as some freedom is allowed for. An infrastructure manager might specify new or replacement track components at a variation from the nominal gauge for pragmatic reasons. Track is defined in old Imperial units or in universally accepted metric units or SI units, Imperial units were established in United Kingdom by The Weights and Measures Act of 1824. In addition, there are constraints, such as the load-carrying capacity of axles. Narrow gauge railways usually cost less to build because they are lighter in construction, using smaller cars and locomotives, as well as smaller bridges, smaller tunnels. Narrow gauge is often used in mountainous terrain, where the savings in civil engineering work can be substantial. Broader gauge railways are generally expensive to build and require wider curves. There is no single perfect gauge, because different environments and economic considerations come into play, a narrow gauge is superior if ones main considerations are economy and tight curvature. For direct, unimpeded routes with high traffic, a broad gauge may be preferable, the Standard, Russian, and 46 gauges are designed to strike a reasonable balance between these factors. In addition to the general trade-off, another important factor is standardization, once a standard has been chosen, and equipment, infrastructure, and training calibrated to that standard, conversion becomes difficult and expensive. This also makes it easier to adopt an existing standard than to invent a new one and this is true of many technologies, including railroad gauges. The reduced cost, greater efficiency, and greater economic opportunity offered by the use of a common standard explains why a number of gauges predominate worldwide
