I thought you folks might find this interesting.

Railroad tracks...

Be sure to read the final paragraph; your understanding of it will depend on the earlier part of the content.

The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number.

Why was that gauge used? Because that's the way they built them in England , and English expatriates built the US railroads.

Why did the English build them like that? Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used.

Why did 'they' use that gauge then? Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which use d that wheel spacing.

Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing? Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads in England , because that's the spacing of the wheel ruts.

So who built those old rutted roads? Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (and England ) for their legions. The roads have been used ever since.

And the ruts in the roads? Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels. Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome , they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing. Therefore the United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot. Bureaucracies live forever.
So the next time you are handed a Specification/Procedure/Process and wonder 'What horse's *** came up with it?' you may be exactly right. Imperial Roman army chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the rear ends of two war horses. (Two horses' asses.) Now, the twist to the story:

When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRB's. The SRB's are made by Thiokol at their factory in Utah . The engineers who designed the SRB's would have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRB's had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains, and the SRB's had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track, as you now know, is about as wide as two horses' behinds.

So, a major Space Shuttle design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a horse's ***. And you thought being a horse's *** wasn't important? Ancient horse's asses control almost everything... and CURRENT Horses Asses are controlling everything else. =============

Milwrd

old snooze

You might check the variety of track gauges and lack of standardization of Australian Railroads - a real nightmare! You wouldn't want to travel by rail "down under".

OMG!

Not this again!

One of the things I hate about the internet is how old garbage never gets cleared out and folks find stuff and think since they see it online:

a. It must be true
b. No one else ever saw this.

I won't go into a reasonable dissection of this urban legend (I've already done this several times on other posts) but will point out the most obvious flaw: The Roman legions NEVER EVER (that's right - NEVER, you know like in "THEY DIDN'T USE THEM") used "war chariots".

Geez.

I get emails like this all the time. I always refer the sender to Snopes.com, or to search on Google for it, to check it's validity before they send something to everyone in their mailing list.

my @$$.

the story was entertaining and as with all internet stories there are some true points. thanks Milwrd

Tolerance is becoming a premium on this forum. Give him a break, please.

Would someone care to explain why we use 4 ft 8.5 inches then? I would love to know.

quote:

4 ft 8.5 inches?

Here read this...still doesn't answer the question but it is interesting stuff...

http://www.niquette.com/books/sophmag/asinorim.htm

Or you can accept this explanation....

quote:

Where did the four-foot, eight-and-a-half-inch standard originate? Gabriel says it was from a Englishman named George Stephenson. Carts on rails had been used in mines in England for years, but the width of the rails varied from mine to mine since they didn't share tracks. Stephenson was the one who started experimenting with putting a steam engine on the carts so there would be propulsion to pull them along. He had worked with several mines with differing gauges and simply chose to make the rails for his project 4-foot, eight inches wide. He later decided that adding another six inches made things easier. He was later consulted for constructing some rails along a roadway and by the time broader plans for railroads in Great Britain were proposed, there were already 1200 miles of his rails so the "Stephenson gauge" became the standard.

Interestingly, the 4-foot, eight-and-a-half inch width has not always been the standard in the U.S. According to the Encyclopedia of American Business History and Biography, at the beginning of the Civil War, there were more than 20 different gauges ranging from 3 to 6 feet, although the 4-foot, eight-and-a-half inch was the most widely used. During the war, any supplies transported by rail had to be transferred by hand whenever a car on one gauge encountered track of another gauge and more than 4,000 miles of new track was laid during the war to standardize the process. Later, Congress decreed that the 4-foot, eight-and-a-half inch standard would be used for transcontinental railway.

No, no, I'm pretty sure it went something like this:

In AD 54-68, Roman emperor Nero decided that roads and all wheeled conveyances must be Standardized throughout the empire. To do this, what he needed was a way to communicate the new standard. Galba, an amateur military-procurement historian and Nero's eventual successor, stepped in to help promote this standard.

Galba was an avid modeler, and had produced several fine-looking small model wagons and chariots. Knowing most people were illiterate, he knew he'd need to make many models to send out across the countryside to promote the new standard. Once he found a size that seemed to be just right for his model-crafting methods, he declared this to be Standard Gauge. In 68 AD, upon assuming the title of Emperor, Galba decreed that henceforth all wagons must be scaled up from the Standard Gauge models.

Galba also sought to use this venture as an opportunity to promote the concept of the Roman Legions' War Chariot. Like the Boeing SST, this conveyance never made it into production, but did leave a mark on history's footnotes: the SST as name inspiration for a short-lived NBA team, the War Chariot as dimension inspiration for a road system.

The written plans for this "War Chariot" were promoted mainly in the procurement specifications released in "Roman Legions RFP DCXLIV, Soliciting Prototype and Production Proposals and Bids for Lightly Armored Personnel Carrier with Flexible Strike Capabilities". Unfortunately these conveyances proved susceptible to the Improvised Etruscan Device (a rock placed in the path of the chariot wheel); ultimately, the legions discontinued the Roman War Chariot and it has faded from history.

Otho, emperor from mid-January to mid-March AD 69, had slightly smaller hands and improved dexterity over Galba: he adapted the Standard Gauge to a slightly smaller model, which he called O Gauge.

Unfortunately for Otho, in March 69, he fielded an expedition that was heavily dependent on the War Chariot in a "striker" configuration; they did not fare well in their encounters with the Improvised Etruscan Devices (IED's). Otho's term ended shortly after, and most of the world forgot the origins of the term "O Gauge".

Centuries later, Galba's "War Chariot" plans were uncovered and reconstructed. After correcting for some early math errors, the newly sized plans were dubbed "G Gauge"... but here again, the origins were pretty much forgotten and we were left with just the most basic gauge specification.

Excellent Bob



4' - 8 1/2" opening + 3 1/2" railhead = 5' center to center.

Rand

1. Dave, sorry I got you all worked up.
2. Bill, thanks for the tip on the Snopes site
3. Bob, I must admit, that is excellent.

I'll do my best to research things like this a little more before I stick my foot in my fingers again. I still find it interesting though.


Milwrd

quote:

Originally posted by milwrd:
1. Dave, sorry I got you all worked up.
2. Bill, thanks for the tip on the Snopes site
3. Bob, I must admit, that is excellent.

I'll do my best to research things like this a little more before I stick my foot in my fingers again. I still find it interesting though.


Milwrd

Please don't feel bad. This subject comes up about twice a year and something new is always added.

Way ahead of economic news to me!



Rand

Kind-of reminds me of a past Paul Harvey piece. . . . "and now you
know . . . the rest of the story!"

HOPPY

There is so much crap out there, I check snopes first if the subject interests me. Otherwise I just delete it.
.....
Dennis