Railroads....

[Soop Dogg]

Railroads

 

Does the statement, "We've always done it that way" ring any bells? . read to the end...it was a new one for me

 

 

 

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?

 

 

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

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!

 

Maybe I will amount to something yet.

[SupraStar 3000]

WOW

I hope thats all true.

 

nice story

[heckler]

Brian

 

get your jacket, and leave the building...

[geoffvalenti]

Sorry, but it's a

 

http://www.mkivsupra.net/vbb/showthread.php?t=35580

[Angie]

Sorry, but it's a

 

http://www.mkivsupra.net/vbb/showthread.php?t=35580

 

 

ooops!

 

Forgot the PC was logged in under Angies account......just a minute.....

[Scoboblio]

Wow

[Soop Dogg]

That's better!

 

Blonde moment! (ducks punch from Angie...)

 

Yeah, erm, I just thought I should remind everyone of it in case they'd forgotten.

 

[tbourner]

It's good to repost sometimes so people like me can see them cos they obviously missed it the first time!!!