honda_s2k

I know from reading some of the repetitive posts inquiring about your career interests, etc., that quite a few on this board have an engineering background of some type.

Count me in!

Given that fact, I thought that the following post might be relevant:

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 the US railroads were built by English expatriates.

Why did the English people 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 use that odd wheel spacing?

Well, if they tried to use any other spacing the wagons would break on some of the old, long distance roads, because that's the spacing of the old wheel ruts.

So who built these old rutted roads?

The first long distance roads in Europe were built by Imperial Rome for the benefit of their legions. The roads have been used ever since.

And the ruts?

The initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagons, were first made by Roman war chariots. Since the chariots were made for or by Imperial Rome they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing.

Thus, we have the answer to the original questions. The United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches derived from the original specification for an Imperial Roman army war chariot.

Specs 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 chariots were made to be just wide enough to accommodate the back-ends of two war horses.

Why do YOU do the things you do?

And, while we are on to it::

There's an interesting extension of the story about railroad gauge and horses' behinds.

When we see a Space Shuttle sitting on the launchpad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are the solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at a factory in 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 to the factory runs through a tunnel in the mountains. The SRBs had to fit through that tunnel.

The tunnel is slightly wider than a railroad track, and the railroad track is about as wide as two horses' behinds.

So a major design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was determined by the width of a horse's backside!

cdelena

Very interesting post.. so if we ever need to we should be able to roll two SRB's side by side on a chariot down this street in Pompei.

Schatten

I love these kinds of posts. It always adds to the list of "useless information" as my friends call it.

Mindcore

That was great. I love reading the James Burke books and this was right up that road( or train track)

dbw

here's a good place to mention that during the civil war the southern states changed the width of their wagon tracks to make it impossible for the northern horse-drawn artillery to move in the wheel grooves left in the "roads"...skip to 1910 when henry ford's model T was taking off, he was forced to make axle sets to fit not only nothern roads but a "widetrack" version for south of the mason-dixon line....this version was offered well into the 1920's.. a clear statement on the condition of the roads of the days.....and we complain about poor road conditions today.

Schatten

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Mindcore:
[B]That was great. I love reading the James Burke books and this was right up that road( or train track)

NSXS

Is he the guy from Connections and Connections II? I liked that show. My favorite is that the air conditioner was invented by a Florida doctor trying to cure malaria.

Mindcore

Your Right, Connections. They used to run it on the Learning channel. I miss it. He was truely unique.

1Y2KS2K

Not quite in the same vein (or as witty) as honda_s2k, but I thought I'd add it here anyway. Worth a chuckle!

Here's your weekly safety brief...

Be careful what you wear (or don't wear), when working under your car...especially in public.

From the Sydney Morning Herald Australia comes this story of a central west couple who drove their car to K-Mart only to have their car break down in the parking lot. The man told his wife to carry on with the shopping while he fixed the car.

The wife returned later to see a small group of people near the car. On closer inspection she saw a pair of male legs protruding from under the chassis. Although the man was in shorts, his lack of underpants turned private parts into glaringly public ones.

Unable to stand the embarrassment, she dutifully stepped forward and tucked everything back into place. On regaining her feet, she looked across the hood and found herself staring at her husband who was standing idly by.

The mechanic, however, had to have three stitches in his head.

bbsilver

[QUOTE]Originally posted by cdelena:
[B]Very interesting post.. so if we ever need to we should be able to roll two SRB's side by side on a chariot down this street in Pompei.