Hmmm makes you wonder...

[Grego]

Dare we innovate?

The rails of the US railways are spaced 4 feet and 8.5 inches apart, the equivalent of 1435,1mm.
A very peculiar distance!

Why has this space been chosen?
Simply because this was the one used in England. And english experts built the first american railways.

Why did the english experts build them like this? Because the first railways were built by the same people who built the first streetcars, and this was the distance they used for these tracks.

Why then did they use this measurement?
- because those who built the first streetcars used the same tools and techniques as the coachbuilders, and the coaches had this wheelbase.

Why were the coaches designed with this wheelbase? They were because if any other wheelbase was used, then the wheels would break on the older English highways, because the wheel tracks were spaced with this measurement.

Who built these old roads with thissize wheel tracks? The original ones were built by the Romans, for use by their legions, and they have been in use ever since.

And the wheel tracks?
Roman warchariots made the first wheel tracks, these chariots all had the same wheel base, and this is the answer to my first question.

The US rails are spaced 4 feet and 8.5 inches apart, this origins from the specifications of a Roman warchariot.

Specifications and bureaucracy lives forever!
And the next time you encounter predetermined specifications and bureaucracy, and are wondering what ass has laid down these rules, then you have every right to do so!
Because you see, the Roman warchariots were made, so that they were the same width as the rear end of 2 horses.

There is an interesting afterthought regarding this entire story about the spacing of rails and the rear ends of horses…

Whenever you watch a spaceshuttle ready for launch, it has 2 boosterrockets attached to the main fueltank. These boosters are made by Thiokol Ltd., located in Utha.

The engineers who designed these boosters, would have preferred that they were a tiny bit bigger, but they had to be transported by train to Cape Canaveral in Florida.

The railway from the plant passed through a tunnel in the mountains, and of course the boosters had to fit into this tunnel.

The tunnel is a little wider than the tracks, which has the same measurement as 2 horses’ asses.

Therefore the design of the most advanced vehicle on Earth, is determined by the width of a horse ass !!!!!!!!

Hope its understandable, had to translate it from Danish. (not the kind you eat )

[Paddy]

hehehe

Good work!

[Six Of One]

Indeed, good work and nice reasoning. But since i don't have a sense of humor to speak off i would like to point out that there are several different railformats in Europe. This comes from several reasons but mainly the width of the curves and the diameter of the wheels (and therefore speed) were decisive factors.

Anyway, i like horse-assed railways. They sure smell funny

[ayoub_ibrahim]

we wouldn't want to go off the rails would we??

[Kaj]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by ayoub_ibrahim:
we wouldn't want to go off the rails would we?? </font>

Well now.. what gave you that idea?

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[This message has been edited by Kaj (edited 13 May 2001).]

[Wombat]

That's a fairly true bit, but the booster part is a little Internet-falsehood:

Funny? Sure. True? Yes and no. Follow the line of development with me and you'll see what I mean.

(1) U.S. track gauge based on UK track gauge. True. While most U.S. railroads were designed by U.S. engineers, not British expatriates, a number of early lines were built to fit standard-gauge locomotives manufactured by English railroad pioneer George Stephenson.

(2) UK railway track gauge based on width of earlier tramways used to haul coal. More or less true. Although tramway width varied widely among regions, those in the coal district in the north of England, where Stephenson began his work, used a gauge of four-foor-eight.

(3) North England tramway width based on wagon-wheel spacing. Not literally true--there was no standard wagon-wheel spacing. However, wagons and their wheels averaged five feet in width, since this size would conveniently fit behind a team of draft animals. The North England tramway gauge apparently had been arrived at by starting with an overall track width of five feet and using rails that were two inches wide. Five feet minus four inches for the rails equals four-foot-eight. (I'm skipping some complicated history here, but that's the gist of it.) Stephenson later widened the tracks a half inch for practical reasons, making the standard gauge four feet, eight and a half inches. While this is an "exceedingly odd number," it derives from a basic track width of five feet, which is not odd at all.

What about Roman war chariots and rutted roads? Roman "rutways," many of which were purposely built to standard dimensions, were close to modern railroad tracks in width. For example, the rutways at the buried cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum averaged four-foot-nine center to center, with a gauge of maybe four-foot-six. But there's no direct connection between Roman rutways and 18th-century tramways. The designers of each were dealing with a similar problem, namely hauling wheeled vehicles behind draft animals. So it's not surprising they came up with similar results. (Thanks to University of Munich economic historian Douglas Puffert, an expert on railroad gauge, for kind assistance in tracing this story.)

Bonus info! Didn't have room in the printed column, but another version of this legend adds the rococo touch that the solid rocket boosters (SRBs) used on the space shuttle are manufactured at a Thiokol plant (I presume in Utah), then shipped to Florida by rail for final assembly at the launch site. The rail line passes through one or more tunnels en route, and the SRB pieces had to be made small enough so they'd fit through the tunnel bore. Thus, the legend triumphantly concludes, the dimensions of one of our most advanced vehicles was determined by the size of one of our most ancient!

True? Again, yes and no. A NASA spokesperson confirms that railroad tunnel dimensions were a constraint that had to be taken into account when designing the SRBs. However, tunnel dimensions are less a function of track gauge than of rolling stock width. U.S. railroad cars are quite a bit wider than those in England because parallel tracks are placed farther apart. (I'm talking tracks, not rails here, capisce?) As a consequence, U.S. railroad tunnels typically are wider too. So you can't really make the case that the size of the space shuttle's boosters was determined by the width of a couple horses' butts.

Still more bonus info! I came across the following in the book Gordian Knot: Political Gridlock on the Information Highway by W. Russell Neuman, Lee McKnight, and Richard Jay Solomon:

[A]s an accident of history most road carriages in the the Middle Ages inherited the old Roman cart gauge of approximately 4 feet, 8-1/2 inches. Julius Caesar set this width under Roman law so that vehicles could traverse Roman villages and towns without getting caught in stone ruts of differing widths. Over the centuries this became the traditional standard.

Richard Solomon, the source of this bit, has elaborated in a message posted to the net that Caesar decided on standard gauge after seeing a "grooveway" at the isthmus of Corinth in Greece. This was a purposely built set of ruts used to guide the wheels on carts carrying goods being transshipped across the isthmus. Prof. Solomon says he personally measured an excavated portion of this ancient grooveway and found it had a gauge of four feet, eight and a half inches.

Coincidence? That was my reaction. But this claim about an edict by Julius Caesar was something new--it's not mentioned in any of the standard histories of Roman roads I've seen. I've exchanged E-mail with Prof. Solomon trying to learn his source, but he was on the road and couldn't provide a cite. Watch for late-breaking bulletins as your columnist continues to pursue this story.

Another thing. I have heard tell of certain wheel ruts having a gauge of you-know-what at the gate to an old Roman fort called Housesteads on Hadrian's Wall in the north of England. Legend (specious legend, no doubt, but one mustn't prejudge) has it that George Stephenson based the gauge he used for his locomotives on the width of these ruts. Why, God knows, I'm just telling the story. This myth is supposedly addressed in a book entitled Housesteads by Jim Crow (Batsford, London, 1995, pp. 33-34). However, can you believe it, I can't find my copy! Anyone who'd care to help the Straight Dope track down this tome will have the thanks of a grateful world.

--CECIL ADAMS