CyborgElephant t1_iyjustj wrote on December 1, 2022 at 10:49 PM

Reply to comment by beachedwhale1945 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

Did you downvote me? I don’t know anything about trains. In my head I wondered if they had this, and they do. The solution exists, so not sure why it would be “a system you don’t need”, and why it would fail. If any train can go on any track, dynamically, then the size of the tracks don’t matter.

beachedwhale1945 t1_iymiddw wrote on December 2, 2022 at 2:34 PM

>Did you downvote me?

I generally don't downvote anyone except in extremely rare circumstances. Not considering maintenance or why universal solutions are not needed in all cases are commonplace and not worth my downvote. I use these as teaching points, encouraging you to think about something in a different way.