----- Original Message -----
From: Sheila Chapman <[log in to unmask]>
To: susan <[log in to unmask]>; Carole Menser <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, September 15, 1999 11:17 AM
Subject: Fw: Specifications


> >> An interesting tidbit:
> >>
> >> The US Standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet,
8
> 1/2
> >> inches. 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 railway 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 in England, 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
> >> their wagons use that odd wheel spacing?
> >> Because, if they tried to use any other spacing the wagon wheels would
> break
> >> on some of the old, long distance roads.
> >> Because that's the spacing of the old wheel ruts. So who built these
old
> >> rutted roads? The first long distance roads in Europe were built by
> Imperial
> >> Rome for the benefit of their legions. The Roman roads have been used
> ever
> >> since. And the ruts?
> >> The original ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of
> destroying
> >> their wagons, were first made by the wheels of Roman war chariots.
Since
> the
> >> chariots were made for or by Imperial Rome they were all alike in the
> matter
> >> of wheel spacing.
> >> Thus, we have the answer to the original question. The United States
> >> standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8 1/2 inches derives from the
original
> >> specification for an Imperial Roman army war chariot.
> >> Specifications and bureaucracies live forever.
> >> So, 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
> >> chariots were made to be just wide enough to accommodate the back-ends
of
> >> two war-horses.
> >> Plus, there's an interesting extension of the story about railroad
gauge
> and
> >> horses' behinds. When we see a Space Shuttle sitting on the launch pad,
> >> there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main
fuel
> >> tank. These are the solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made
by
> >> Thiokol at a 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 from the factory runs
> >> through a tunnel in the mountains. The SRBs had to fit through that
> tunnel.
> >> The tunnel is slightly wider than a railroad track, and the railroad
> track
> >> is about as wide as two horses' behinds.
> >> So a major design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced
> >> transportation system was originally determined by the width of a
horse's
> >> ass.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
>
>