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[quote user="John WR"] [quote user="Bucyrus"]Say you run a country in the age before railroads, and you have just invented the railroad concept.  You want to use it as a universal transportation system in your country.  So right from the very start, you know you need an identical gage throughout your system.  What gage would you choose?[/quote] Putting myself in your hypothet, Bucyrus, it is 1828 and I have just been elected President instead of Andrew Jackson.  And I have the same mind set I have now.  What I would do is the same thing Robert Stevens did do.  George Stephenson makes state of the art locomotives.  To set up my railroad I buy a few from him and some track from Britain and I would use the Stephenson gauge.  That is what I would do.   But Andrew Jackson was President, not me.  He firmly opposed all internal improvements and, had he been asked, would have nothing to do with those new fangeled railroads.  And most of the people with money to invest saw canals as a much better investment than railroads.  In fact, our government had little interest in railroads until the Civil War.  And even the U. S. Military Railroad lasted only until the war ended.  The government was willing to support the transcontinental but did not want to own it.  So yes, the individual companies building railroads did not have any guidance.  Clearly they did what made sense to them and many of the early railroads were short.  Many connected inland points with tide water.  They were focused on getting a product out.  I can see gauge was secondary and at that point in history trunk lines did not yet loom large.   John <div style="clear:both;"></div> [/quote] John, I understand your answer, but I meant to stipulate that you would be selecting your railroad gage at a time when no other railroad existed anywhere as a potential gage precedent.  You would be the first to build a railroad and select the best gage.  And you would then connect every town with that railroad.
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