5 ft and 1520 mm gauge railways
Railway track gauge / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Railways with a railway track gauge of 5 ft (1,524 mm) first appeared in the United Kingdom and the United States. This gauge became commonly known as "Russian gauge", because the government of the Russian Empire chose it in 1843. Former areas and states of the Empire have inherited this standard.[1] However in 1970, Soviet Railways re-defined the gauge as 1,520 mm (4 ft 11+27⁄32 in).[2]
With about 225,000 km (140,000 mi) of track, 1,520 mm is the second-most common gauge in the world, after 1,435 mm (4 ft 8+1⁄2 in) standard gauge.[3]