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Like the commercial states, "...wider is better." If you're going to build a rail system from scratch, and if you don't need any compatibility with standard gauge systems, you gotta go wider! Okay, most of you are using the gauge question in reference to transit, which has no real market based cost/benefit analysis upon which to rely. So if you ask the question in terms of freight, then it takes on a whole new analysis. The concerns of specialized equipment needs for wider gauges are legit, the question that arises then is can the benefits of an increased load factor per train length make up for the increased equipment costs? Consider an 8' gauge for a moment. That's roughly twice as wide as Standard Gauge. With standard gauge, we get about a 10.5' revenue width, a little more than twice the width of the track gauge. With an 8' gauge, you can expect a 16' + wide revenue width for your transport vehicles. That's the ability to put two ISO containers side by side, or a "quad stack" - two wide and two high. Now you've doubled the revenue loads per train length, or to put it another way, you now have one train where you once needed two. Then the question is if the cost savings of running one train vs two, and the doubling of revenue loads per train length, can make up for the increased equipment costs. Of course, you can also go "Super Train" style and run double wide equipment on two parallel sets of standard gauge tracks. At least then you can use standard axle and bogie sets on the double wide equipment.
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