Eastern Railroad Discussion > Track Width

Railway Track Width

Does the statement, "We've always done it that way" ring any bells...?

The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the 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 English expatriates built
the US Railroads.

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!

But 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?

Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (and England)
for their legions. The roads have been used ever since. And the ruts in
the roads...?

Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to
match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels. Since the chariots were
made for Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel
spacing.

The United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived
from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot. 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, because the Imperial Roman war chariots were made just
wide enough to accommodate the back ends of two war horses.

Now the twist to the story...

When you 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 at Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs would 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 happens 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, as you now know, is about as wide as two horses' behinds.

So, a major Space Shuttle 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.

And you thought being a HORSE'S ASS wasn't important!!
> >
>

It's funny, but NOT true.
http://www.snopes.com/history/american/gauge.htm

That's as old as the hills; but still funny...

As noted above, none of that is true.

First, the author confused "loading gauge" (the width and height that rolling stock can be) and "track gauge" (distance between the running rails. Loading gauge can differ a lot even when the track gauge is the same. Try running a BMT/IND size subway car on the IRT Division in New York, and see how many platforms you shave.

So the tunnel wasn't "just a little wider than the tracks". Anyway, clearance routes are available to bypass restrictive clearances.

Second, there were LOTS of track gauges in both the UK and the USA, ranging from two feet (Maine) to six feet (Erie RR and the Great Western in England).

Third, those tramways that predated railroads were built to lots of different gauges too. And not everybody's wagon had 56 1/2 wheel spacing, either.

So it's a good story, but we could have easily ended up with a standard gauge of, say, five feet.

Still funny, though.

JohnBBredin wrote:

> It\\'s funny, but NOT true.
> http://www.snopes.com/history/american/gauge.htm
>
That website in no way, shape, or form refutes the Roman story.
While there were many different guages, the origination story is not disproven.

As for trolley gauges, the Pennsylvania Broad Gauge (used also in Baltimore) was put in place to keep out-of-town standard gauge railroads from using the tracks to compete with local railroads.

See the refute of the "Roman war chariots" theory on the Western Board's posting of this thread (it's pretty silly when you think about it. There would have never been enough "Roman war chariots" gathered together in one place to create ruts that everyone else would have had to follow).

John , you're sure about the number of chariots that could make those ruts???
Ever been to England? Ever been to Bath in England?
Those Romans did some remarkable things.....

Regards

When the "Roman war chariot" theory was soundly refuted by a person on Trainorders a couple of years ago, he pointed out that the Roman army never traveled by chariot and that chariots were only used for ceremonial purposes. So it seems unlikely that enough ceremonial chariots would gather together to make permanent ruts.