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?

 

Well, because that's the way they built them in England, and English engineers designed the first US railroads. Why did the English build them like that?

 

Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the wagon tramways, and that's the gauge they used. So, 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 same wheel spacing. Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing?

 

Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break more often on some of the old, long distance roads in England . You see, 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 (including England ) for their legions. Those roads have been used ever since.

And what about the ruts in the roads?

 

Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match or run the risk of destroying their wagon wheels. 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. Bureaucracies live forever.

 

 

So the next time you are handed a specification/procedure/process and wonder 'What horse's word not allowed 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. (Two horses' asses.)

 

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 in 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, and 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 word not allowed.

 

Just in case you thought being a horse's word not allowed wasn't important.

Edited October 21, 20223 yr by HiFlyer

Excellent !

 

Delightful, Devon !   ( the comma makes a whole lot of a difference, or it could well be an exclamation from one of Devon's friend bears.... )

Now, please please, write something in that line of writing and make me uninstall XP12 and MFS and get 100% in AEFS4 .... 😜

Edited October 22, 20223 yr by jcomm

Thank God the American colonists in their great wisdom rejected the metric system, the Pound shilling, and driving on the left side of the road...

At least they accepted a metric currency.

The ingredients of Spam.

Well doesn't that make me a Horses not allowed to say it. Great info. though. Interesting.

Hmmmmm,

I was deep into investigating about this, phoned an old sim friend from ancient Rome, and he sent me the following link:

Are U.S. Railroad Gauges Based on Roman Chariots? | Snopes.com

This is also for Devon not to mess with tempting me with reinstalling MFS, which I am now forced to given the BEAUTY of that EPISODE 14 : GLIDERS.... 😜

Edited October 28, 20223 yr by jcomm

4 minutes ago, jcomm said:

Hmmmmm,

I was deep into investigating about this, phoned an old sim friend from ancient Rome, and he sent me the following link:

Are U.S. Railroad Gauges Based on Roman Chariots? | Snopes.com

This is also for Devon not to mess with tempting me with reinstalling MFS, which I am now forced to given the BEAUTY of that EPISODE 14 : GLIDERS.... 😜

Hmmmmmm... The guy who wrote that seems (to me) to be picking some nits; being very skeptical of conclusions/assertions, while unable to completely refute the original premise. I think he would have probably scoffed at an old Miniseries I enjoyed back in the day called "Connections" 😛

On 10/22/2022 at 2:23 PM, overspeed3 said:

Thank God the American colonists in their great wisdom rejected the metric system, the Pound shilling, and driving on the left side of the road...

 

Metric rules! Much better system. But we in the British Isles are very diplomatic... we use both. 😁 

Our road signs are miles per hour. Our speedometers are MPH but in baby numbers KPH. Buy a length of wood from a DIY store and it's metric. And I use imperial for course measurements and metric for precision. 👍 And then of course we use decimal currency. Makes life more interesting to use both.

 

Almost forgot, my favourite restaurant is the IMPERIAL Hotel and Restaurant. 😵

https://www.theimperial.gg/

 

 

Edited October 29, 20223 yr by martin-w

20 minutes ago, martin-w said:

 

Metric rules! Much better system. But we in the British Isles are very diplomatic... we use both. 😁 

Our road signs are miles per hour. Our speedometers are MPH but in baby numbers KPH. Buy a length of wood from a DIY store and it's metric. And I use imperial for course measurements and metric for precision. 👍 And then of course we use decimal currency. Makes life more interesting to use both.

 

Almost forgot, my favourite restaurant is the IMPERIAL Hotel and Restaurant. 😵

https://www.theimperial.gg/

 

 

You're forgetting we also fill our tanks by the litre but work out economy on miles per gallon!
I have two sons 37 and 34 (silly names I know but they're good kids) They are fully metricated and get wound up by my instance to talk feet and inches, so to meet them halfway I now deliberately mix my units when discussing stuff with them.
Look at me at 1 metre 2ft 6in tall can cope with both systems but they can only manage the one system........ who's the more intelligent now huh! 😁

5 hours ago, BrianT said:

You're forgetting we also fill our tanks by the litre

 

And measure our weight in Stones and Pounds. Except when we visit the doctor and they use kilograms. 

I just looked up the Epsom Derby to see if they still used furlongs, because I think the commentators used to say "They're now entering the final furlong". But I found the distance is actually one mile, four furlongs and six yards (2,420 metres) - much more complicated than I expected.

Edited October 29, 20223 yr by dmwalker

Which English King had a foot 12 inches long? Or maybe the Archbishop of Canterbury was measured for the standard?