Ever wonder why things are screwed up?


While this story does not relate directly to audio, a undeniable example of the importance of a horse's ass and the role of specifications.

STANDARD RAILROAD GAUGE:

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.

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 ends of two war horses.

Which leads us up to today, the space age.

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.
128x128Ag insider logo xs@2xalbertporter
Ok - after spending almost 25 years in the Railroad industry (specifically track related Engineering) I can assure you that standard gauge is in fact 56.5". Thats not to say that there isn't a level of tolerance that is allowed for as a result of numerous issues so one can measure center to center and find out its not quite up to snuff.

There are a few transit systems within the US that are of a different gauge - BART for one I believe.

Without reviewing each msg so excuse me if I am repeating this...I will add that the Soviet Union had at one time (and may still have) a different gauge from that of the rest of Europe. This negated other countries having the ability to use their own rolling stock to enter the Soviet territory with the intent to attack and take over...
Bear, if you go over the tracks slow enough with your foot dragging from the car ( use your left foot and not your right ), you will be able to feel the "bumps". By doing this, you can "guesstimate" the distance. This will save you the trouble of having to stop the vehicle and get out and measure anything : ) Sean
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Bear, you are on the right "track," with both your measurements and your personality.
Just another bit of useless information: Rgd is right, if you travel from western Europe to Russia, you have to change trains because they are not compatible. Even stranger: if you travel from Holland to Germany they have to change the locomotives at the border because they use different voltages...