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Rail gauges in Australia display significant variations, which has presented an extremely difficult problem for rail transport on the Australian continent for over 150 years. In the 19th century, each of the Colonies of Australia adopted their own gauges. However with Federation in 1901 and the removal of trade barriers, the short sightedness of three gauges became apparent. It would be 94 years before all mainland state capitals were joined by one standard gauge. ==Track gauges and route kilometres== The most common railway gauges in Australia are Narrow (1,067mm), Standard (1,435mm) and Broad (1,600mm) gauges. The narrower 610mm gauge is found on shorter lines, particularly sugarcane tramways in Queensland. As at 2014, the Australian rail network could be broken down in kilometres as:〔(Trainline 2 Statistical Report ) Bureau of Infrastructure Transport & Regional Economics 2014 page 53〕 *In Queensland, there is a 4,000 kilometre Sugarcane tramways network, 18 on and one on , but these carry very little through traffic so that the break-of-gauge is not a problem.〔(Queensland suger cane railways today ) Light Rail Research Society of Australia〕 *Victoria had four short lines for general traffic〔(VR timeline ) Mark Bau's VR website〕 *Private timber tramways used a variety of gauges *Lines built in association with iron ore mining in the Pilbara, bauxite mining in Weipa and steel manufacturing at Newcastle and Port Kembla have all used standard gauge lines. Likewise the Richmond Valley and South Maitland Railway lines in the Hunter Valley also used standard gauge. *The Whyalla Steelworks was built as a narrow line, being converted to standard gauge when the Commonwealth Railways Whyalla line opened. *Temporary lines at construction sites, such as the gauge railways used for the development of the national capital at Canberra between 1913 and 1927, including Parliament House and construction line to Burrinjuck Dam 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Rail gauge in Australia」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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