Prof Levin has presented an interesting and curious description of the
origin of an important industrial standard--the width of railway guages.
Unfortunately, the story isn't quite accurate historically, but HAS
acquired the status of urban legend, and has been the subject of historical
enquiry.

For a detailed discussion of this urban legend, readers may want to see the
following:
                http://www.urbanlegends.com/misc/railroad_gauge.html
                http://www.straightdope.com/columns/000218.html

At 02:57 PM 5/16/02 -0400, Yigal Levin wrote:
>The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5
>inches. That's an exceedingly odd number. Why was that gauge used? Because
>that's the way they built them in England, and English expatriates built the
>US Railroads.
>
>Why did the English build them like that?  Because the first rail lines were
>built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the
>gauge they used.
>
etc.

Fritz Efaw,
Emma Goldman Distinguished Professor of
Political Economy and Inorganic Psychology.