The regional economic impacts of the railway gauge muddle in Australia
研究了澳大利亚三种不同轨距铁路的换乘点对区域发展的影响,发现换乘点使当地人口和就业在十年内增长约50%,但换乘点关闭后二十年内这些效应消失。
The mainline railways in Australia were initially built in three different gauges, with ‘breaks-of-gauge’ where passengers and goods transferred between them. This paper studies how the gauge situation affected regional development and the railway network in the 20th century. Regional breaks-of-gauge caused substantial local growth, with population and employment increasing by around 50% within a decade of them opening. However, these effects were unwound within two decades of a break-of-gauge being closed. There is little evidence of gauge segmentation causing different paces of regional development. The gauge muddle also appears to have limited the extent of the railway network.