Breitspurbahn

there is one constant of delusional thinking---you are never limited by scale

whether a street person claiming to be earth's redeemer or a fuhrer leading
his people to global domination---big ideas are better ideas

so it was that Adolph Hitler and Albert Speer planned a new rail system based upon
3 meter wide rail gage--9 ft 10 in
passenger cars were 120 ft long 20 ft wide 23 ft tall

speed 150 mph ---

none of this came about--but here are illustrations of the time and a recently posted
animation

jh

Breitspurbahn_Szene2_A.mp4 - YouTube

Breitspurbahn_

Breitspurbahn_11

The Tiger tank was transported by rail with narrow tracks. After unloading the tank the narrow tracks were removed and the standard width tracks were installed. Time consuming but necessary as the Tiger was too wide to transport via rail with standard width tracks.
John

A wider gauge is not _always_ a mistake. In this era of interest in high-speed trains, it's been observed that it would be better if the USA Standard was 60" (5-feet) rather than 56.5". President Abraham Lincoln cemented the USA to 56.5" by choosing this for the Transcontinental Railroad. His rationale was to bind the West to the North, where the common gauge was 56.5, rather than binding the West to the South, where the 60" gauge was commonplace.

Might add that locally here in the northeast, the Erie RR once had a gauge of 72" - known as the Erie Gauge and used only by them and a few connecting lines.

The great British engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel engineered some early RR's with a SEVEN FOOT broad gauge. Worked well except it was not compatible with anything else.

JRR

Albert Speer was a capable and visionary architect. For example, consider Flughafen Berlin-Tempelhof.

The disadvantage of wider gauges was inhibited turning radius. So gauge decisions were also based on terrain and route availability.