Subject: Railroad gauge - History
Railroad
gauge
Fascinating Stuff . .
.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-O6rrbCilEyM/VfshTW3OXiI/AAAAAAAAUTk/EgcQIFsHnmU/s1600/RR1.jpeg Railroad
Tracks
The U.S. 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
designed the U.S. 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
had used for building wagons, which used that wheel
spacing.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TsvViXiV8tQ/VfshmEpJgWI/AAAAAAAAUTs/CNng-SI-tRA/s1600/RR2.jpeg 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.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dMIq3ByhELM/VfsiDBvSaAI/AAAAAAAAUUE/01EijMm8n6k/s1600/RR3.jpg So,
who built those old rutted roads? Imperial
Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (including England)
for their legions. Those 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.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PhjaXIMQa-U/VfsiPRzPLoI/AAAAAAAAUUM/vF3ApF0zu7o/s1600/RR4.jpeg 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. In other words, bureaucracies
live forever.
So
the next time you are handed a specification, procedure, or process, and
wonder, 'What horse's ass came up with this?', you may be exactly
right.
Imperial Roman army chariots were
made just wide enough to accommodate the rear ends of two war
horses.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bvzUghp3qo4/Vfsijc_kyLI/AAAAAAAAUUU/4atCspzyZxg/s1600/RR5.jpeg Now,
the twist to the story:
When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its
launch pad, you will notice that 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 in
Utah.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-c2joSKkRwHY/VfsitHUp1EI/AAAAAAAAUUc/WWAgwIiqAJM/s1600/RR6.jpeg The
engineers who designed the SRBs would have preferred to make them a bit
larger, 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 and the SRBs
had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad
track, and the railroadtrack, as you now know, is about
as wide as two horses'
behinds.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-sQyUodJWnqU/Vfsi8uC3NMI/AAAAAAAAUUk/v-k974rZW7Q/s1600/RR7.jpeg 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! Now you know, Horses' Asses control almost
everything.
Explains
a whole lot of stuff, doesn't it?
