VERY IMPORTANT: 4 FEET 8.5 INCHES

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Benchwayze

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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.

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 (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.

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 ..

Now, the twist to the story:


When you saw 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 .


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 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 we thought a horse's ass wasn't important!

Now we know, Horses' Asses influence almost everything.

Explains a whole lot of stuff, doesn't it?
 
I think Roman chariot wheel spacing was 2 passus (paces), which is about 5 feet. But wait a minute, that's a bit bigger than 4'8 1/2". Remember that railway gauge is measured between the inside edges of the rail, not the centres. Pretty close.
 
Yes. Broad gauge; I don't know why they changed, unless it was the obvious saving in land required for the tracks. I didn't compile the piece mind. I just passed it on! :lol:
 
I'm interested in Local History including the railways, pre Beeching, and collect memorabilia and pics of our village station, and not too far away Barnstaple Which had 5 stations, including 1 at Pilton Yard, for the well known Lynton narrow gauge railway.
For any other anorak's out there, here's a link regarding the early and later gauge.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broad_gauge
Regards Rodders
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wollaton_Wagonway
Apparently the gauge isn't definitely known, but widely reported as 4' 6".

The Surrey Iron Railway was another short-lived plateway, but well documented; gauge 4' 2".

They were all around 4' 6", probably because it was convenient for horsedrawn trucks. Brunel's broad gauge (7' 1/4") came a lot later.

Apparently the Nazis planned a super-broad-gauge system to link up major cities. It would have had a 3 metre gauge.
 
In Finland we still have the old imperial russian broad gauge. 1524 mm.

Historcans say that this system originally was invented as a way to make it more difficult for an European army to invade Russia.
 
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