Re: I had to post this



Jay Cunnington wrote:

> Tim Coyle wrote:
>
> > Does the statement, "We've always done it like that" ring any bells? Read
> > to the end, this is a new one for me.
> >
> > The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet,
> > 8.5inches.
> > 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 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 ass
> > came up with it, you may be exactly right, because the Imperial Roman army
> > [Unable to display image] chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate
> > the back ends of two war horses.
> >
> > 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 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
> >
> >
> It's been posted before. It makes a good story, but I'm not sure how
> true it is. The story has had its detractors. Can anyone cite sources
> for this story? Historians, historical research, etc.?

There's something of a gap in the historical recording between the time the Romans
left Britain and the first English tram roads.
However it is correct that carts traditionally used a constant spacing of approx 5
feet between wheel tread centers in the 18th and 19th century and that this
matched the spacing on Roman built roads. The tram railways used normal roadway
carts on flanged rails. mostly with inside flanged edges but some with outside
flanged edges. When Iron began to be used for rail running surfaces it was
realized that it was easier to put the flange on the wheel and the running surface
narrower and thicker.

.

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