Just saw this on VD. No idea if its true, but i belive it.
Does the expression, "We've always done it that way" ring any bells?
The US standard railroad gauge is 4 feet 8.5 inches. That is 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 used that wheel spacing.
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.
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. 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 arse 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...
There's an interesting extension to the story about railroad gauges and horses' behinds.
When we 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 Thiokolat their factory at Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs might 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 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 arse.
Most ships are made to fit through the Panama canal.
The panama canal was built to fit the Titanic.
So most modern large ships have a design based on the Titanic.
i alwasy thought american railroad were wider then ours. i dont see how the english built the rail roads over there. we got driven out of america before they ever built railways. but im pretty sure our rtail road are narrower. but interesting story
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The Width of Railroad Tracks is based on a History that Extends Back to Roman Chariots-Fiction!
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.
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[i]We ride in the knowledge that our fate is in the hands of many
Fairings are for homesexuals [/i]
baskie wrote:i alwasy thought american railroad were wider then ours. i dont see how the english built the rail roads over there. we got driven out of america before they ever built railways. but im pretty sure our rtail road are narrower. but interesting story
Not being a historian but I don't think the native Americans built the railroads I think they were still on horseback hunting buffalo.
Where did the whiteman originate from ? I am pretty sure they sailed there from somewhere near Jaspers
baskie wrote:i alwasy thought american railroad were wider then ours. i dont see how the english built the rail roads over there. we got driven out of america before they ever built railways. but im pretty sure our rtail road are narrower. but interesting story
Later, Congress decreed that the 4-foot, eight-and-a-half inch standard would be used for transcontinental railway.
Baskie most of the world uses "standard" gauge. Including the USA and the UK, BTW That's the gauge Stevenson used for the Rocket. Congress decree only made all US railways use the UK gauge.
What the real reason is I don't know. But it is a hell of a coincidence that the track of chariots in Pompeii are within 1/2inch of most modern railways.
Come to think of it, even if it only goes back to Stevenson, its still pretty amazing if the space shuttle bit is true.
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[i]We ride in the knowledge that our fate is in the hands of many
Fairings are for homesexuals [/i]
