The Railway Regulation (Gauge) Act 1846 (9 & 10 Vic. c.57) is an Act of the

Parliament of the United Kingdom The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative suprema ...

, that was designed to standardise

railway tracks A railway track (British English and UIC terminology) or railroad track (American English), also known as permanent way or simply track, is the structure on a railway or railroad consisting of the rails, fasteners, railroad ties (sleeper ...

. It achieved royal assent on 18 August 1846, during the reign of Queen Victoria of the

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was a sovereign state in the British Isles that existed between 1801 and 1922, when it included all of Ireland. It was established by the Acts of Union 1800, which merged the Kingdom of Grea ...

. It mandated that the

track gauge In rail transport, track gauge (in American English, alternatively track gage) is the distance between the two rails of a railway track. All vehicles on a rail network must have wheelsets that are compatible with the track gauge. Since many ...

– which was the distance between the two running rails' inner faces – of 4 feet 8 inches to be the standard for

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It i ...

and 5 feet 3 inches to be the standard for

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

.Railway Regulation (Gauge) Act 1846 (PDF)
/ref>The metric equivalents of the dimensions specified are 1435 and 1600 millimetres respectively.

The Act

The Act stipulated that: Furthermore, it also provided that, following the Act's passing, it would be illegal to alter a railway gauge that was in use for the conveyance, i.e. transport, of passengers.

Assessment

The Act continued legislative approval of the broad-gauge railways constructed by the Great Western Railway engineer

Isambard Kingdom Brunel Isambard Kingdom Brunel (; 9 April 1806 – 15 September 1859) was a British civil engineer who is considered "one of the most ingenious and prolific figures in engineering history," "one of the 19th-century engineering giants," and "on ...

and endorsed the construction of several new broad-gauge lines, but restricted them to the south-west of England and to Wales. The Act stated that these railways "shall be constructed on the Gauge of Seven Feet".Later, the distance between the rails was widened, for engineering reasons, to 7 ft 0, for which the metric equivalent is 2140 mm. The resulting isolation of these lines ultimately contributed to the demise of the Great Western Railway broad-gauge system.

Notes

References

External links

Railways Archive entry for the act
{{UK legislation 1846 in law 7 ft gauge railways 5 ft 3 in gauge railways Standard gauge railways United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 1846 1846 in rail transport History of rail transport in the United Kingdom 1846 in England 1846 in Scotland 1846 in Ireland Railway Acts

The Act

Assessment

Notes

References

See also

External links