The gauge of a railway is the distance between its rails. At one time, the standard gauge in several countries was 1.48m (4ft 10.25 in), which was thought to have been the width of Roman chariot tracks. Today, many different gauges are used.
In rail transport, track gauge or track gage is the spacing of the rails on a railway track and is measured between the inner faces of the load-bearing rails.
All vehicles on a rail network must have running gear that is compatible with the track gauge, and in the earliest days of railways the selection of a proposed railway’s gauge was a key issue. As the dominant parameter determining interoperability, it is still frequently used as a descriptor of a route or network.
In some places there is a distinction between the nominal gauge and the actual gauge, due to divergence of track components from the nominal. Railway engineers use a device, like a caliper, to measure the actual gauge, and this device is also referred to as a track gauge.
The terms structure gauge and loading gauge, both widely used, have little connection with track gauge. Both refer to two-dimensional cross-section profiles, surrounding the track and vehicles running on it. The structure gauge specifies the outline into which new or altered structures (bridges, lineside equipment etc.) must not encroach. The loading gauge is the corresponding envelope within which rail vehicles and their loads must be contained. If an exceptional load or a new type of vehicle is being assessed to run, it is required to conform to the route’s loading gauge. Conformance ensures that traffic will not collide with lineside structures.
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