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I_am_10_squirrels t1_iykrxpr wrote

Reply to comment by aarhus 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

From the source, it was started on May 31st 1886, so it should read "after just 36 hours" instead of "by June 1886"

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aarhus t1_iykt1vm wrote

Yes, I see now the article does a poor job of referencing the source.

The source claims in the South they were preparing to change 11,500 miles of track.

The article says all the track in North America, 11,500 miles, was on the new gauge.

Clearly, unless all the track in North America was located in the South, one of these is wrong.

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I_am_10_squirrels t1_iymah81 wrote

>The article says all the track in North America, 11,500 miles, was on the new gauge.

I couldn't find any references with a quick minute of Google fu, so let's assume a five person team could reposition 1 mile of track in an hour. They were moving just one side, so doesn't seem unreasonable given 1886 tools.

That would mean 320 five person teams, 1600 people working 36 hours straight. So, again, surprisingly not unreasonable.

I thought this would help me figure out which source was wrong, but now I still don't know.

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