>>984865Maybe something little wider than standard gauge, but no more than about 2 meters / 7 feet. Maybe 5 ft 6", that would allow double stacked containers on simple flat cars.
That topic being brought up, you should also ask for catenary height or maybe even more specificly: target loading gauge. That is, how big solid chunks the railroad is expected to carry? Is the extra capacity needed that is acquired by increasing the area of the train in X and Y directions, when the cheaper way is just to add more Z - that is, more carriages or more trains. This is because we make only so many windmill blades and space shuttle rocket boosters, most of the stuff we make is "human sized" and fits into our current trains and is unlikely to grow, unless we evolve into titans.
Loading gauge is what dictates the minimum catenary height and rail gauge. While a higher catenary and wider rails cost slightly more, that sum is dwarfed by the cost caused by the stuff that would be needed to be moved out of the way to construct the virtual unobstructed tunnel that the railroad needs.
