Model Railroading > Track Width

If you\'ve never read this info before, well here it is...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!!
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Nice work Wheel! After a hectic week it was nice to find something amusing to read online. Thank you for posting it.

Loco Bil

Hey Wheel, that was in our club\'s spring newsletter, you\'ve been peeking, haven\'t you?

Of course, this theory about "Roman war chariots" is bogus. Go to the same thread on the Western Board and read the replies.