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Subject: The test of time Well, yes, but not entirely correct. The waggonways (tramroads) of north east England had gauges which varied between 4 feet and 5 feet, but it so happens, that an anonymous waggonwaywright built the Killingworth waggonway at 4 feet 8 inches gauge, sometime before 1764, perhaps, or perhaps not, acting on instructions. It was on this particular waggonway that George Stephenson was subsequently involved, and his influence on railway development was so great, that 4 feet 8.5 inches became standard gauge throughout much of the world. Had he been involved on the Wylam waggonway (5 feet gauge) instead, the US Standard railroad gauge might have been a few inches wider; had he been involved on the Tanfield waggonway (4 feet gauge) it might have been a few inches narrower. Humbly suggest that you forget about Roman chariots and rutted roads. > >More appropriate, good engineering can live long after you. What good >engineering works have you done recently? > >ENGINEERS TAKE NOTE,THE EVIL YOU DO LIVES AFTER YOU. >> >> The US Standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet 8.5 >inches. That is an exceedingly odd number. Why was that gauge used? Because >that is the way they build railroads 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 that 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 use that odd wheel spacing? Well if they tried to >use any other spacing the wagons 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 roads have >been used ever since. >> And the ruts? The initial ruts that all had to match for fear of breaking >their wagons were made by Roman war chariots. Since the charoits were made for >or by Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing. > >> So the US railroad gauge of 4 feet 8.5 inches derives from the original >specification of an Imperial Roman war chariot. Specs 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. The Roman chariots were made to >be just wide enough to accommadate the backends of two war horses. > >> Now the twist to the story. There is an interesting extension of the story >about railroad gauge and horses behinds. >> >> When you see a space shuttle sitting on the launch pad, there are two big >booster rockets attached to the main stage shuttle. These are solid rocket >boosters(SRB's). The SRB's are made by Thiokol at a factory in Utah. The >engineers who designed these SRB's might have preferred to make them fatter, >but >the SRB's had to be shipped by train to the launch site. The railroad line >from >the factory runs through a tunnel in the mountains. The SRB's 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 the major design feature of what is arguably the worlds most advanced >transportation system was deternimed by the width of a horse's ass! > > > Stafford M Linsley Lecturer in Industrial Archaeology The University Newcastle upon Tyne England NE1 7RU Tel. 0191-222 6795 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%