Fun post and it does make you think. I only wonder how true it is because I know there were competing railroad gauges in the early days before it was standardized. I'll let my fellow freepers more knowledgeable on the matter verify it.
I read a couple of books about Civil War General N.B. Forrest and an interesting point that was made was that although the tracks in the North were standardized, in the South there were many competing "short" lines and the guage could differ on one track to another within the same state.
This caused the Confederacy no end of trouble as it was so time consuming to shift entire loads of men, munitions, horses, food or whatever and contributed greatly to the Southern defeat.