Tracks across Continents, Paths through History¶
Puffert, D. J. (2009). Tracks across Continents, Paths through History: The Economic Dynamics of Standardization in Railway Gauge. University of Chicago Press.
Cited by¶
2 citations across 2 artifacts.
Each citation links to the sentence it supports in the citing article.
Primes¶
- Lock-In
- Puffert (2009) treats rail-gauge lock-in as one of the most precisely documented infrastructural cases, with switching costs in the billions and continuation costs that have been borne for over a century.
This sourceGlobally comparative history of railway gauge standardization; the most precisely documented infrastructural lock-in case, with multi-billion-dollar switching costs and century-long continuation costs illustrating how complementary investment in physical infrastructure produces deep, durable asymmetries.
- Puffert (2009) treats rail-gauge lock-in as one of the most precisely documented infrastructural cases, with switching costs in the billions and continuation costs that have been borne for over a century.
- Standardization
- In infrastructure, railway gauge standardization is the textbook case: railways built to incompatible gauges could not interchange rolling stock, and the convergence on a standard gauge (often by mandate or by the dominant network's de facto pull) was the act that let separate lines become one network — with the persistent minority of non-standard gauges a monument to the cost of failing to converge.
This sourceThe canonical study of railway-gauge standardization as path-dependent convergence on a shared specification.
Supported in partVerified against the publisher's abstract
Puffert's book description carries the frame the claim needs — gauge compatibility lets separate lines exchange traffic and surviving breaks of gauge remain costly — but not the mandate-versus-market mechanism the claim parenthesises.
“gauge—the distance between the two rails—enables connecting railway lines to exchange traffic. But despite the benefits of standardization, early North American railways used six different gauges extensively, and even today breaks of gauge at national borders and within such countries as India and Australia are expensive burdens on commerce.”
- In infrastructure, railway gauge standardization is the textbook case: railways built to incompatible gauges could not interchange rolling stock, and the convergence on a standard gauge (often by mandate or by the dominant network's de facto pull) was the act that let separate lines become one network — with the persistent minority of non-standard gauges a monument to the cost of failing to converge.
Verification¶
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