Willytheskake wrote:
>The US has undoubtedly the worst railway system I have
>encountered in the 1st world.
You obviously haven't travelled much in England recently!!!
Reminded me of an interesting (?) bit of "well I never" trivia
I spotted on the Foktrain list the other day - you live and learn!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ever Wonder Why? ...
The US standard railroad gauge (width between the
two railroad rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 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 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 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 have that particular odd
wheel 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?
Roman war chariots first formed the initial ruts, which
everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their
wagon wheels. Since the chariots were made for (or by)
Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel
spacing. The United States standard railroad gauge of
4 feet, 8.5 inches derives from the original specification
for an Imperial Roman war chariot.
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 war chariots
were made just wide enough to accommodate the back
ends of two war horses.
Thus, we have the answer to the original question.
Now the extraterrestrial twist to the story ...
When we see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad,
there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides
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 SRBs had to fit through that tunnel.
The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the
railroad track is about as wide as two horses' behinds.
So, the major design feature of what is arguably the world's
most advanced transportation system was determined over
two thousand years ago by the width of a horse's ass.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
PaulC
np: Jimmy Webb - Galveston (with Fred Tackett on open-tuned
guitar - saw Fred with Little Feat at The Ocean in London recently -
playing guitar, mandolin and trumpet - fantastic!! Got some great
pics.
