Horses Asses

[Amazon 7]

I just love this stuff.


The US standard railroad gauge (width between the two rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches (also in Victoria). That's an exceedingly odd number.
Why was that gauge used?

Because that's the way they built them in England; and the US railroads were built by English expatriates.

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, when 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 road were first formed by Roman war chariots, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels. Since the chariots were made for (or by) Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing.

The United States standard railroad 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 arse came up with it, you might be exactly right, because the Imperial Roman war chariots were standardised and made wide enough to accommodate the backends of two war horses.

Now - when you see a Space Shuttle sitting on it's 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 in Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The size and thrust of these SRBs impacted most other areas of the Space Shuttle's design.

The railroad line from the Thiokol factory to where the SRBs can then be transported to NASA, runs through several tunnels in the mountains, and the SRBs had to fit through those tunnels. The tunnels are only slightly wider than the railroad track - yep that track!!

So, the single major design feature of what is without a doubt the world's most advanced transportation system ever built, was determined over two thousand years ago because of the width of two horses' behinds.

And you wonder why it's so hard to make things change around here.???


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[jtval 0]

Ive read this somewhere before,Its pretty interesting,still.

Put my job in perspective! seems evenone horses ass can effect the rest of us!

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[n2skdvn 0]

Always check Snopes first!!!!

false

if my calculations are correct SLINKY + ESCULATOR = EVERLASTING FUN
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[Amazon 7]

Nah.. no need I am not that anal retentive.

Oh oh... its that subject again.

Amazon

[n2skdvn 0]

LOL!!

if my calculations are correct SLINKY + ESCULATOR = EVERLASTING FUN
my site

[jtval 0]

how do you know snopes is correct?

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[Amazon 7]

Kewl.. someone who knows how to laugh....what with all the serious types around here the last few days I was beginning to think maybe skydiving really had changed to much.

Amazon

[jtval 0]

Hmm whatever do yo mean!

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[FliegendeWolf 0]

Quoting Snopes:

Quote

This is one of those items that -- although wrong in many of its details -- isn't exactly false in an overall sense and is perhaps more fairly labelled as "True, but for trivial and unremarkable reasons."

A One that Isn't Cold is Scarcely a One at All

[skymut 0]

Gives new meaning to oldtimers who say "well we've always done it that way."

Matt
A well-informed person is somebody who has the same views and opinions as yours.