Alas, it appears NOT to be true:
http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/r/railwidth.htm
also:
http://www.snopes.com/history/american/gauge.asp
I live in Utah, and am not familar with a tunnel in Northern Utah that is only slightly wider than a standard RR gauge....
Russell D. Hartill, JD
-----Original Message-----
From: Roger Hutchins <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Tue, Feb 16, 2010 1:37 pm
Subject: FW: History Lesson
Can anybody verify this ???
HISTORY LESSON
Railroad tracks. This is fascinating.
he US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5
nches. That's an exceedingly odd number.
Why was that gauge used? Well, because that's the way they built them in
ngland , and English engineers designed the first US railroads.
Why did the English build them like that? Because the first rail lines were
uilt by the same people who built the wagon tramways, and that's the gauge they
sed.
So, why did 'they' use that gauge then? Because the people who built the
ramways used the same jigs and tools that they had used for building wagons,
hich used that same wheel spacing.
Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing? Well, if they tried
o use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break more often on some of the
ld, long distance roads in England .. You see, that's the spacing of the
heel ruts..
So who built those old rutted roads? Imperial Rome built the first long
istance roads in Europe (including England ) for their legions. Those roads
ave been used ever since.
And the ruts in the roads? Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which
veryone else had to match or run the risk of destroying their wagon wheels.
ince the chariots were made for Imperial Rome , they were all alike in the
atter of wheel spacing. Therefore the United States standard railroad gauge
f 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for an
mperial Roman war chariot. Bureaucracies live forever.
So the next time you are handed a specification/procedure/process and wonder
What horse's ass came up with this?', you may be exactly right. Imperial Roman
rmy chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the rear ends of two war
orses. (Two horses' asses.)
Now, the twist to the story:
When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big
ooster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid
ocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at their factory in Utah
The engineers who designed the SRBs would have preferred to make them a bit
atter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch
ite. The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the
ountains, and the SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly
ider than the railroad track, and the railroad track, as you now know, is about
s wide as two horses' behinds.
So, a major Space Shuttle design feature of what is arguably the world's most
dvanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the
idth of a horse's ass. And you thought being a horse's ass wasn't important?
ncient horse's asses control almost everything and....
URRENT Horses Asses are controlling everything else.
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