Thanks Tony, this is getting interesting. Could there be some element of fact in the story after all, even if the Roman connection was just a joke?
> Date: Wed, 17 Feb 2010 11:21:20 +0000
> From: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: History lesson
> To: [log in to unmask]
>
> On the Pennine moors near the town of Rochdale, Lancashire, England,
> there is a section of paved road thought to be Roman running straight down
> slope from the top of the hill, near a rock outcrop known as Blackstone Edge.
>
> The road is about ten feet wide, and there is a single groove running down it,
> in the centre. The theory is that this was to take the broom trailed behind the
> waggon as it sdecended the steep section of road, the broom acting as a
> brake.
>
> Roman roads tended to be paved with stone, as this road is, and, I believe,
> the Appenine Way near Rome, consequently there are no grooves worn by
> the cart wheels.
>
> I understand that Stephenson's gauge of four feet eight-and-a-half inches
> was indeed that of the surface track at the colliery where he was working on
> his locomotive designs, and that had been chosen so that two horses could
> be used to haul the trucks, but that gauge dates from the late 1700s.
>
> Tony Brewis
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