A bit of unnecessary trivia

chas smith R.I.P. · Post by **chas smith R.I.P.** » 29 Jul 2003 12:24 pm

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.
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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.
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Why did "they" use that gauge then?
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Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools
that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.
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Okay! 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.
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So who built those old rutted roads?
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Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (and England)
or their legions. The roads have been used ever since.
> >
And the ruts in the roads?
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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.
> >
The United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived
from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot.
And bureaucracies live forever.
> >
So the next time you are handed a specification and wonder what
horse's ass came up with it, you may be exactly right, because the Imperial
Roman war chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the back ends
of two war horses.
> >
Now the twist to the story...
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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 SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at their
factory at Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs would have preferred
to make
them a bit fatter, but the SRBs 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. The SRBs 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 ass. .......and you thought
being a HORSE'S ASS wasn't important!

David L. Donald · Post by **David L. Donald** » 29 Jul 2003 1:31 pm

Gotta love it!

Smiley Roberts · Post by **Smiley Roberts** » 29 Jul 2003 4:14 pm

Charles,
Your gonna hate me for this:
www.snopes.com/history/american/gauge.htm

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<pre> ~ ~
©¿© It don't mean a thang,
mm if it ain't got that twang.
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Ken Lang · Post by **Ken Lang** » 29 Jul 2003 6:08 pm

Seems to me the snopes site does it's best to say there is no relationship to the US gauge except that they fit the width of the ruts that were laid down thru history, and the developments from wagons to trains were based on the ruts, not the Roman Army horses ass.

The argument about trains during the civil only proves Chas's much repeated point. Standards win over willy-nilly ideas.

Could there be a horses ass at the snopes site trying to argue that horses asses don't count?

I suspect a would be intellectual trying to change a moot point.

Smiley Roberts · Post by **Smiley Roberts** » 29 Jul 2003 8:54 pm

Okay,let's try this: www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/railwidth.htm

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<pre> ~ ~
©¿© It don't mean a thang,
mm if it ain't got that twang.
www.ntsga.com</pre>

[This message was edited by Smiley Roberts on 29 July 2003 at 09:57 PM.]

b0b · Post by **b0b** » 29 Jul 2003 10:06 pm

Moved to the 'Humor' section