I believe that this one was comprehensively debunked back on that
Scopes site we all had experienced of recently. Of course, that may no
longer be an authoritative source.
Engineer's urban myth?
AndrewF
On 21/04/2004, at 12:20 AM, Jez.Cunningham@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:
>
>
> 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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