Should we continue to stick to one gauge for rail transit in the US?

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Peterson6868
[As for freight and wider gauges I got that idea from visiting my local marina on Lake Michigan were they use a "Marine Railway" to move boats around the yard.
They use a 8 foot gauge track. So I came up with the vision of barges being floated on huge flatcars and being tuged around by deisal engines. There would be 20 foot wide track for the barges and standerd track for the standerd gauge in the middle.

That's actually not a bad observation. Such a gauge could fit well with retrofitted LASH-ship concept..

http://www.waterman-steamship.com/specs.htm

...., but rather than the 30' x 60' specs of the current LASH system, maybe something more in the line of 20' x 60'. One of the drawbacks of the current LASH system is that it is entirely predicated toward barge transport, so it is completely dependent on non-time sensitive commodities. With a rail based LASH system, you could move the more time sensitive commodities as well as standard bulk commodities.

[Anonymous]

If you were to build a railroad, why use a differnet guage than the norm? and, if it has outside connections, and youare not standard guage, think of all those steam locomotive you couldnt run....

[Anonymous]

With a Marine standerd gauge railway you have access to the worlds largest waterway system the Mississippi river. A barge railway could afford year round access to Alberta and parts of Alaska. It could provide a bridge between the Great Lakes and the Ohio Valley.