Standards in engineering

Message posted by Jean Parker, 19:34 Today

The U.S. standard gauge (distance between rails) is 4 feet 8.5 inches.

That is an exceedingly odd number. Why was that gauge used? Because

that's

the way they built them in England, and the U.S. railroads were built by

English expatriates. Why did the English build them that way? 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? Because the people who built the tramways

used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which

used

that wheel spacing.

So why did the wagons have that particular odd 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 was the spacing of the

wheel

ruts.

So who built those old rutted roads?

The first long distance roads in Europe (and England) were built by

Imperial

Rome for their legions. The roads have been used ever since.

And the ruts in the roads? The ruts in the roads, which everyone had to

match for fear of their destroying wagon wheels, were first formed by

Roman

war chariots. Since the chariots were made for (or by) Imperial Rome,

they

were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing.

The U.S standard railway gauge of 4 feet-8.5 inches derives from the

original specification for an Imperial Roman war chariot. 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 war chariots were

made

just wide enough to accommodate the back end of two war horses.

Thus we have the answer to the original question. Now for the twist to

the

story.

When we see a space shuttle sitting on its launching pad, there are two

booster rockets attached to the side of the main fuel tank. These are

solid

rocket boosters, or SRB's. The SRB's are made by Thiokol at their

factory in

Utah.

The engineers who designed the SRB's might have preferred to make them a

bit

fatter, but the SRB's had to be shipped by train from the factory to the

launch site. The railroad line from the factory had to run through a

small

tunnel in the mountains. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad

track, and the railroad track is about as wide as two horses' rumps.

So, a major 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 rump!

Don't you just love engineering?

Well, Brunel did try to make it a round 2.2metres, but nobody wanted to know...

Well, Brunel did try to make it a round 2.2metres

Ah, the width of a womans rump.

Ah, the width of a womans rump.

Just holding that thought.

You sure that's what you're holding?

If it works Interesting post.

Ah, the width of a womans rump.

hate to see the kind women you date then