Daniel. For your information the NSW railway gauge is the "Standard Gauge"
4ft 8 1/2 inches, that is used almost all over the world.
Austria, Belgium, Bolivia, Bulgaria, China, Czechoslovakia, Canada, Denmark,
Egypt, France, Germany, Britain, Holland, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Yugoslavia,
Mongolia, Norway, Poland, Peru, Rumania, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and the
USA all use 4ft 8 1/2 inches.
The other Australian states used various gauges, other than the standard
gauge. This came about because before Federation, in Australia, the other
"States" were separate colonies and virtually separate countries.
New Zealand was also a colony and was almost another state of Australia but
that is another story.
These separate colonies agreed on nothing and were fiercely competitive in
almost everything. They all had their own theories on building railways and
as a result there was a proliferation of systems and gauges. Victoria and
South Australia has wide gauge 5ft 3 inches, Queensland and Western
Australia has narrow gauge 3ft 6 inches. Some of the states even have
different gauges for passenger and freight lines.
Only now are we getting some form of agreement and the Australian standard
is now 4 ft 8 1/2 inches.
I am from Sydney, NSW, Australia and proud of it ;-)
Michael.
"----- Original Message -----
From: "Daniel Tan" <dan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <olympus@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, April 21, 2004 9:23 AM
Subject: [OM] Re: [OT] Was: 3 phase wiring Now: railroad gauge
>
> If we're following this line, did you know that for Australia, the
> railroad gauge is different between QLD, NSW and VIC? I can't quite
> remember the other states, but the NSW gauge is (the odd one out and)
> wider than the other two.
>
> Daniel Tan
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: olympus-owner@xxxxxxxxxx [mailto:olympus-owner@xxxxxxxxxx] On
> Behalf Of Jez.Cunningham@xxxxxxxxxx
> Sent: Wednesday, 21 April 2004 00:20
> To: olympus@xxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [OM] [OT] Was: 3 phase wiring Now: railroad gauge
>
>
>
> If we're going to get off-topic, then...
> enjoy!
> Jez
>
> IT'S JUST A QUESTION OF STANDARDS
>
> The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet,
> 8.5
> inches, which is an exceedingly odd number.
>
> Why was that gauge used ?
> Because that is the way the railways were built 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 is 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.
>
> 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 was the
> spacing of the wheel ruts on those old roads.
>
> So who built those old rutted roads?
> Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (and in
> England) for their legions. The roads have been used ever since.
>
> And the ruts in the road?
> 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 alike in the matter of wheel spacing.
> The US 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 spec and told we have always done it
> that
> way and wonder what horse's arse came up with that, 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 in 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.
>
> Therefore, 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 arse.
>
> And you thought being a horse's arse wasn't important ???
>
>
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