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Read on . . .
Unbelievable . . .
Be sure to read the final paragraph, but your understanding of it
will depend on the earlier part of the content. This is amazing and
very funny.
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.
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 had 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. Therefore the United
States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from
the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot.
Bureaucracies live forever.
So the next time you are handed a Specification/ Procedure/Process
and wonder, "What horse's ass came up with this?" you may be exactly
right.
Imperial Roman army chariots were made just wide enough to
accommodate the rear ends of two war horses. (Two horses' asses.)
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, and 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?
Ancient horse's asses control almost everything.
And current horses' asses are controlling everything else.
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Yes, Donny,
And the great I K Brunel started to change it and built railways of seven feet gauge from London to Bristol and all over the west country, but nobody copied him and the Stevensons built more railways of 4'8.5" and eventually the directors of the Great Western Railway knuckled under and converted to the narrow gauge.
But in 18?? (I just tried to find the details but failed) Brunel gave permission to one of his engine drivers to see how soon he could get from Bristol to Paddington and trains don't go that fast any more!
And the great Charles Babbage constructed for Brunel a carriage with multiple pen recorders to record the unevennesses of the track. Once they had done it a couple of times they could tell exactly where they were just by looking at the pen traces!
And If Brunel had won the space shuttles boosters would have been a different shape and trains everywhere would go faster!
Love,
Anthony
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Anthony! This is so cool! It is awesome how technology all ties in together at different places. Like Babbage and his calculating engines and computing machines and his work on the railroad. Now because you are English i have to ask you to settle something for us colonials. How is the name Brunel pronounced? We say "Brunnel" to rhyme with tunnel, but I have heard people pronounce it "Brew-nell."
Hugs
Donny
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Eldon's account of railway gauges is fascinating. But there is another phenomenon which, apparently, goes back to the Romans: which side of the road we drive on.
Archaeologists have uncovered an ancient stone quarry near Swindon in England that dates to Roman times. They noticed that the ruts made by the wagons going to and from the quarry were different in depth. On the assumption that it was the wagons going from the quarry that were heavily laden with stones it can be inferred that the Romans (and Britons) drove on the left.
Sociologically, this makes sense. In an age when one's main protection against dangers was one's sword it made sense that most people (being right-handed) would want to confront anyone coming from the opposite direction from the left so that he could draw his sword, if need be, with his right hand.
It seems that the first country to change the "rule of the road" to right-hand driving were the American colonies towards the end of the 18th century. Teamsters started using large freight wagons pulled by several pairs of horses. These wagons had no driver’s seat, so the driver sat on the left rear horse and held his whip in his right hand. Seated on the left, the driver naturally preferred that other wagons overtake him on the left so that he could be sure to keep clear of the wheels of oncoming wagons. He did that by driving on the right side of the road.
I am full of useless information like that.
J F R
The paradox has often been noted that the United States, founded in secularism, is now the most religiose country in Christendom, while England, with an established church headed by its constitutional monarch, is among the least. (Richard Dawkins, 2006)
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Hi Eldon,
There's a discussion of that story on Snopes -- you might find it interesting. Track gauge and loading gauge aren't the same thing, so the latter doesn't necessarily (at all) stem from the former.
http://www.snopes.com/history/american/gauge.asp
I think it's cropped up here before, but I can't remember when.
David
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Napoleon is said to have changed European driving from left to right, but I can't confirm that. The countries of the former Austrian Empire drove on the left until Hitler came along and interfered just before and during World War II. Consequently near the beginning of the film 'The Sound of Music' Julie Andrews gets out of the wrong side of the bus.
More interesting is that a lot of European railways keep left. The reason I was given was that British enginners were imported to do the signalling and no one told them to signal for running on the right. This has produced two anomalies.
French railways run on the left except in Alsace and Lorraine which were part of Germany when the railways were built and so conformed to German standards.
Originally Austrian railways ran on the left. After the Anschluss in 1938 when Austria temporarily became part of Germany the engineers started to resignal spreading out from Munich. The Munich to Vienna line runs on the right until the small town of Amstetten NÖ. That's as far as the engineers got by 1945 when Austria became independent again. So even the express trains stop at Amstetten to cross over to the left for the rest of the journey to Vienna. In general the Südbahn runs on the left and the Westbahn on the right.
Sweden which remained free during WWII changed its road traffic over from left to right on the 3 September 1958 to conform with the surrounding countries. If I can find it I'll scan a picture and post it. Iceland, although an island, did the same at a later date.
Hugs
N
I dream of boys with big bulges in their trousers,
Never of girls with big bulges in their blouses.
…and look forward to meeting you in Cóito.
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Dear Donny,
Isambard Kingdom Brunel is always pronounced Brew-nell here. Son of Sir Marc Isambard Brunel who built the first Thames tunnel (and it is still in use - for underground trains!).
The SS Great Britain is now back in the dry dock where it was built in Bristol's "floating harbour". It was called the floating harbour because it was a harbour you floated it (and didn't rest on the mud every low tide). The SS Great Britain, in its day, was the largest ship in the world and the first to be driven by a screw propellor and its engines, which were the most powerful engines in the world, were fed by gravity that is: to fill the boiler from the header tank you just opened the valve - the 35 feet head of water was sufficient to overcome the steam pressure. High pressure steam they were not! And they used sea water so at the end of every voyage men had to go into the boiler and shovel the accumulated salt out.
My eldest daughter's second wedding was held on the partly restored SS Great Britain.
Love,
Anthony
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Dear Nigel,
Yes, I think Sweden changed over to be like the rest of europe. I was there a few years later and they were still talking about the change-over. It would be almost impossible to make such a change now - there are many junctions which are not enantiomorphous even some on motorways where today you can only join the motorway and after a changeover you would only be able to leave it!
Love,
Anthony
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Ahhh... this thread is my opportunity to point you towards the world's largest steam locomotive. In operation from 1941 to 1959, these "Big Boys" were the Union Pacific's pride and joy. The locomotives were 132 feet long and weighed 1.2 million pounds. Their firebox was twenty two feet deep! Because of their great length, the frames of the Big Boys were "hinged," or articulated, to allow them to negotiate curves. All this had to be done, of course, on a rail gauge designed by a horse's ass... heheheh. The massive engines normally operated between Ogden, Utah, and Cheyenne, Wyoming and were my Dad's learning ground as a fireman and later as an engineer.
Here is a photo of the Big Boy that I have set as my desktop background:
http://www.steamlocomotive.com/bigboy/4019a.jpg
To see these marvolous engines in action, watch this youtube vid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8f9VFlNyDQ
Youth crisis hot-line 866-488-7386, 24 hr (U.S.A.)
There are people who want to help you cope with being you.
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PS - the Irish are considering changing over to driving on the right. They are going to experiment with the buses and trucks driving on the right at first and if that's successful the car, motorcycles and bikes will follow the following year.
Hugs
N
I can't find that pic of Sweden even though I know I've got it somewhere.
I dream of boys with big bulges in their trousers,
Never of girls with big bulges in their blouses.
…and look forward to meeting you in Cóito.
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… as promised. I got the year wrong. It was 1967, but the day is right.
I dream of boys with big bulges in their trousers,
Never of girls with big bulges in their blouses.
…and look forward to meeting you in Cóito.
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I thought I remembered seeing one as it was delivered to the Steamtown National Historic Site in Scranton. They had it displayed on the one overpass as you entered the city, but had to move it after about a month because the weight of the engine was stressing the supports of the bridge.
Cycling is the one sport where a guy can shave his legs, wear spandex and bright colors, and be accepted.
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