You can also specify multiple gem sources (http://gembundler.com/v1.2/gemfile.html), but usually only rubygems.org is used unless you need a private geù repository.
Yeah the question is, can you specify to grab rails from github with a fallback if it is not up? So the same system it seems to be using with multiple gem sources but on a gem by gem basis like you would do with a github repo.