1859 OP t1_iyixad7 wrote
Reply to comment by [deleted] in TIL that the southern United States converted all 11,500+ miles of its railroads from broad gauge (5 ft/1.524 m) to nearly-standard gauge (4 ft 9 in/1.448 m) in just 36 hours, starting on May 31, 1886 by 1859
Nearly all the Southern lines in early 1886 were non-conforming as far as I can tell, so I don't see a significant distinction. The wiki mentions a couple big lines (the Illinois Central and the Mobile and Ohio Railroad) that converted to standard gauge a few months before the big switch, but I can't find anything else. If you can find a good source for the length of track that actually needed adjusting, that'd be an interesting addition.
soolkyut t1_iyiy5fg wrote
Maybe, but the sentence you are relying on for the number isn’t scoped to the south but the entire continent.
“By June 1886, all major railroads in North America, an estimated 11,500 miles (18,500 km), were using approximately the same gauge“
It is a little unsatisfying that it doesn’t seem to say how much was moved.
1859 OP t1_iyiznxz wrote
That part of the wiki appears to be incorrect. 11,500-13,000 was the estimated length of southern railroads. The total length of track in the entire US in 1870 (16 years before) was already more than 45,000 miles, according to this blurb from the Library Of Congress website. The wiki article for rail transportation in the US puts it at 93,000 miles in 1880, but I can't view the source for that one.
soolkyut t1_iyj26lf wrote
We’ll I’m going to write a letter to the manager of Wikipedia!
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