Gauge Checker
The question that decides whether a cross-border rail move is cheap or expensive: do both ends run on the same gauge? If not, the load changes over — and that costs a day and a handling charge.
Gauge: —
Gauge: —
Select an origin and a destination to check whether a wagon can run through.
Why gauge matters more in rail than anywhere else
A truck drives onto any road and a ship sails into any port, but a wagon only runs on track built to its own gauge. There is no adapter. When two networks disagree, the options are physically transferring the load, swapping the bogies under the wagon, or not going.
This is the single biggest reason rail looks complicated on a map and simple in practice: nearly all traffic funnels through a small number of changeover facilities. Most China–Europe containers change gauge at the Kazakh border, then again on the Polish border, because those are where the equipment is.