Birdman note: This was one of the first things I ever saw on the Net. It still makes an impression.
> > 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 (to convert wagons into trams) 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 beaucracies live
forever.
So the
> > next time you
> > are handed a specification and wonder what horse's rear
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.
> >
> > 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 behind.
> >
> > And you thought being a HORSE'S ASS wasn't important!
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