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[Janez Trenz]

Mogoče vas bo zanimalo ;-)

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DESIGN INFO.

You might like to consider this information the next time you are
designing things.

The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet
8.5 inches.

That's an exceedingly odd number!

Q. Why was that gauge used?

A. Because that was the gauge used in England, and initially, English
engineers were responsible for building the US railroads.

Q. Why did the English build them like that?

A. Because the first railway lines were built by the same people who
built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used.

Q. Why did they use that gauge then?

A. Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and
tools that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.

Q. Okay!  Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing?

A. Because that was the spacing of the wheel ruts found on some of the
old long distance roads in England, and if they tried to use any other
spacing, the wagon wheels would break in these existing wheel ruts.

Q. So who built those old rutted roads?

A. The first long distance roads in Europe (and England) were built by
Imperial Rome, for their legions. The roads have been used ever since.

Q. And the ruts?

A. Roman chariots first made the initial ruts. Because the chariots were
made for, or by Imperial Rome, they were all built with the same wheel
spacing, which everyone else had to match if they did not want to
destroy their wagon wheels and wagons.

Q. What determined the width of the chariot and it's wheels.

A. 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:

The United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is
derived from the original specification for an Imperial Roman war
chariot. This dimension was the designed width to accommodate the back
ends of two war-horses.

And now, the twist to the story !!!.

There's an interesting extension to the story about railroad gauges and
horses' behinds.

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. 'Thiokol' make the SRBs at their factory
in Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs might have preferred to
make them a little bit larger in diameter, 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 by the width of a Horse's
arse. Specifications and bureaucracies live forever. So, the next time
you are handed a specification and wonder which horse's rear came up
with it, you may be exactly right.

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