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It's Funny How Things Come Into Being

It's Funny How Things Come Into Being
Interesting how a single decision reverberates through the ages:

Railroad tracks: The U.S. standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That is an exceptionally odd number.

Why was that gauge used? Because that's the way they built them in England, and the U.S. railroads were built by English expatriates.

Why did the English build them that way? 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 that built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.

So why did the wagons have that particular odd 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? 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 roads? The ruts in the roads, which everyone had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels, were first formed by Roman war chariots. Since the chariots were made for (or by) Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing.

The U.S. standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches drives from the original specification for an Imperial Roman war chariot.

Specifications and bureaucracies live forever

Now, here’s a new twist to the story … When we see a space shuttle sitting on its launching pad, there are two booster rockets attached to the side 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, might 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 had to run through a tunnel in the mountains. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track is about as wide as two horses.

So, the major design feature of what is arguably the worlds' most advanced transportation system, was determined over two thousand years ago, by the width of a horse.

Don't you just love engineering?
 
Isn't it awesome how all the things of this world tie together in one cohesive unit? I think stories like that are just amazing! Thanks Tamlin!

SF
 
I'd say, the width of the solid rocket booster was determined by the Imperial war chariot as well, not the width of two horses...since the width of the tunnel was determined by the width of the railroad track which was determined by the width of the war chariot.
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No??
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That depends, PAK. Was the width of the chariot based on the average width of two horses? Then you could say the tunnel was based on the width of two horses truthfully.

SF
 
Yeah...I just realized that. I guess when I think "chariot", I think of one horse pulling it. I can't remember if it was one or two. (Need to see "Ben Hur" again!). Still, I'd think the chariot's wheel base would be wider than the horses for more stability. But that's splitting hairs. lol
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Its a cool tale anyhow you look at it.
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There is (or was) a very cool series on PBS all about this concept!
its called "connections"
the author/host of the show, James Burke, takes all kinds of seemingly minor events in history, and follows the chain of events that minor event set in motion, to come up with amazing results and "connections" between people and events..
I dont know if the shows are still playing anywhere..you can probably buy them..
here are a few links about it..

http://smithsonianassociates.org/programs/burke/burke.asp

http://jam.canoe.ca/TelevisionShowsC/connections3.html

Scot
 
ROFL?
hmm..I didnt see it as funny!
interesting and cool..but not ROFL funny..
but ok!
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Scot
 
  • #10
I'm always the one who doubts everything, it's the anarchist in me.

I remember being outside of Anchorage and there were two sets of traintracks next to each other, of different sizes. Because I have no actual interest in traintracks I didn't pay much attention to it at the time, and I'm therefore pretty sketchy on information. I did a websearch and could only come up with 1) accidents on traintracks, 2) the same info Tamlin offered and 3) US Army spec sheets about traintracks.

I do remember reading something about the tracks while I was up there and I have a vague recollection of the new tracks being wider and used primarily for passengers, while the old ones were for mining and still run tourists back and forth.

I don't bring this up because I like to ruin a fun party, just because I know there's a lot of disinformation on web and it's our responsibility to keep it as true as possible.

Does anyone have any more info about this?

jason
 
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