Switching from one track gauge to another

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That reminds me of the Glasgow streetcar system that had a track gauge that nominally was 3/4 inch narrower than standard gauge specifically so that freight cars from the mainline railroad could be forwarded to industries. The thing being that regular freight cars could not be run on standard gauge streetcar tracks of the type adopted as the rail groove was both too shallow and too narrow, but they could be run with the tips of their flanges running on the bottom of the groove.
 
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An interesting side note about gauges with Russian Gauge. It started out as 1524 mm (60 inches) but in the Soviet era they tightened it to 1520 mm. Neighboring Finland and Estonia kept the original 1524 mm gauge. Trains do run between Russia and Finland/Estonia e.g. St. Petersburg to Helsinki (at least before COVID) and I guess the tolerances are such that the 4 mm difference is not an issue.
Before COVID they had the VR operation between Helsinki and St. Petersburg, and they also had the RZD operation of the Leo Tolstoy between Helsinki and Moscow overnight.

I had traveled on the Leo Tolstoy after the Soviet gauge tightening. There was no discernible difference in the ride between Finland and Russia.
 
An interesting side note about gauges with Russian Gauge. It started out as 1524 mm (60 inches) but in the Soviet era they tightened it to 1520 mm. Neighboring Finland and Estonia kept the original 1524 mm gauge. Trains do run between Russia and Finland/Estonia e.g. St. Petersburg to Helsinki (at least before COVID) and I guess the tolerances are such that the 4 mm difference is not an issue.
Similarly the nominal gauges in Spain and Portugal were originally different by 8mm - not enough to worry about.
 
I guess the tolerances are such that the 4 mm difference is not an issue.
It is not. Think 5/32 of an inch, or just a little over 1/8 inch. This is within construction tolerance. Then, also are we sure this was really 60 English system inches exactly? Not all inches and feet are equal around the world, even when those names are used.
 
Before COVID they had the VR operation between Helsinki and St. Petersburg, and they also had the RZD operation of the Leo Tolstoy between Helsinki and Moscow overnight.

I had traveled on the Leo Tolstoy after the Soviet gauge tightening. There was no discernible difference in the ride between Finland and Russia.
Was there service between Russia and Estonia before the "event" (and no, I don't mean that lil' war thing, but the big C over the past couple years) or recently in general?
 
60 inches x 25.4 mm/inch = 1524 mm

The 1520 mm gauge comes out to 59 and about 27/32 inches (59.8435+)
You missed my point entirely. I have always heard the Russian five foot track gauge, but until I ran into a dimension defined as a foot locally in another country did it hit me that a "foot length" as defined in one country may not be the same length as a "foot length" as defined in another country. So my question was, is a Russian foot the same in actual length as an English foot, that is 25.4*12=304.8 mm? Apparently the answer is yes, but is that about the same or exactly the same?
 
You missed my point entirely. I have always heard the Russian five foot track gauge, but until I ran into a dimension defined as a foot locally in another country did it hit me that a "foot length" as defined in one country may not be the same length as a "foot length" as defined in another country. So my question was, is a Russian foot the same in actual length as an English foot, that is 25.4*12=304.8 mm? Apparently the answer is yes, but is that about the same or exactly the same?
In the Russian case, yes it seems so. But your point that a “foot” might mean almost anything is supported by the origins of Iberian gauge - six Castilian feet and five Portuguese feet respectively - at least as suggested by wiki.
 
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