Engineering that has endured: Engineering that endured. The U.S. Standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number. Why was...

dourob Loc: Palm City, Florida

Engineering that endured.

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 jig 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 for their legions, including 400 years in England. 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 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.

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 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?

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Thanks. I had heard the same story about the Roman chariots years ago. Some people deny it, but it's too good a story not to be true. As for the rocket. Lots of things are limited in size because of transportation.

EdM Loc: FN30JS

sure explains the apparent shortage of horses heads in life...

berchman Loc: South Central PA

There's only partial truth in the story and the part about the space shuttle is baloney since many RR tunnels have more than one set of tracks in width. Also the Confederate South used three different gauges of rails.

lorenww Loc: St. Petersburg

It entertained me.

RodL Loc: Down Under

dourob wrote:

Engineering that endured. br br I think the same ... (show quote)

jim quist Loc: Missouri

The version I heard had Russia in there somewhere

jim quist Loc: Missouri

Obama wouldn't let anyone involved with NASA use the wider tracks because ISIS has stock in the narrower one. :)

berchman wrote:

There's only partial truth in the story and the part about the space shuttle is baloney since many RR tunnels have more than one set of tracks in width. Also the Confederate South used three different gauges of rails.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

jim quist wrote:

The version I heard had Russia in there somewhere

I think they use a wider gauge. That was a problem when Germany was invading. There have been lots of different gauges over the years and around the world. Unfortunately, tracks are now being torn up at an increasing rate. We have an old line that is slated to be torn up to be made into a rail trail.

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

jerryc41 wrote:

Thanks. I had heard the same story about the Roman chariots years ago. Some people deny it, but it's too good a story not to be true. As for the rocket. Lots of things are limited in size because of transportation.

Yes, for decades the width of hulls for US Navy ships (and many commercial ships) was determined by the width of the Panama Canal.

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

berchman wrote:

There's only partial truth in the story and the part about the space shuttle is baloney since many RR tunnels have more than one set of tracks in width. Also the Confederate South used three different gauges of rails.

Yes, many tunnels have two tracks, but the line from the factory supposedly goes through a single track tunnel with that width.

EdM Loc: FN30JS

robertjerl wrote:

Yes, for decades the width of hulls for US Navy ships (and many commercial ships) was determined by the width of the Panama Canal.

good point, but there is some evidence that the canal was widened because the wide boats found california and trains better,and it wuz losing revenue. Not sure about that.; and narrow gauge was used in colorado because of mt turn radius,, dont know about the 3rd gauge

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

jerryc41 wrote:

I think they use a wider gauge. That was a problem when Germany was invading. There have been lots of different gauges over the years and around the world. Unfortunately, tracks are now being torn up at an increasing rate. We have an old line that is slated to be torn up to be made into a rail trail.

I read somewhere that the German army did experiments with a train of the type used to lay or replace rails built to roll onto the wider gauge Russian track, pull the spikes, lift the rail (on one side) and put it down then respike it sized to their standard gauge while the train rolled forward. It moved at about the pace of a fully loaded infantry soldier and ran just a few miles behind the front line of the advancing army.

Don't know if it is true, but it sounds like something the German General Staff would come up with.

EdM Loc: FN30JS

there are areas where the narrow gauge is laid inside the wide making a dual gauge run.. but not often
.. .

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

EdM wrote:

there are areas where the narrow gauge is laid inside the wide making a dual gauge run.. but not often
.. .

That is/was done where narrow gauge and standard gauge lines meet. Railyards, shared tunnels etc. And it is often done with three rails, both gauges using the outside rail on one side.

At the railway museum I belong to we have some dual gauge track on our "loop line", a half mile circle for LA Electric Railway (3'6" gauge) and Pacific Electric standard gauge streetcars. We also have some 3" narrow gauge equipment in another section of the museum but it does not go dual with any other track. Someone once suggested setting up part of our mainline track to run all three gauges. It does already have overhead wires for standard gauge streetcars/electric locomotives to run with the regular trains. The guys in the track section were not amused.
Since 99% of jobs at the museum are done by volunteers you have to have them buy into things to get them done.