Interesting question

[Toro]

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?

[Ogre]

Ive heard the answer before, goes back to the days of horses and carriages i believe. I think it was the width of the horses ass or of the width between the wheels on the buggies or somthing.

[ThaSaltCracka]

[ QUOTE ]
Why was that gauge used?

[/ QUOTE ] because that gauge was more fun to play with than the HO gauge.

[lucas9000]

did you cut and paste your question from here? (http://www.spikesys.com/Trains/st_gauge.html)

[Patrick del Poker Grande]

Even better (http://www.astrodigital.org/space/stshorse.html)

[lucas9000]

[ QUOTE ]
Even better (http://www.astrodigital.org/space/stshorse.html)

[/ QUOTE ]

read all of the link i posted for clarification of what yours says.

[jakethebake]

[ QUOTE ]
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?

[/ QUOTE ]
In spite of TSC's avatar, which makes one think he finds everything interesting, this is not.

[ThaSaltCracka]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
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?

[/ QUOTE ]
In spite of TSC's avatar, which makes one think he finds everything interesting, this is not.

[/ QUOTE ]I agree, its about as interesting as you coming to NY.

[jakethebake]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
In spite of TSC's avatar, which makes one think he finds everything interesting, this is not.

[/ QUOTE ]I agree, its about as interesting as you coming to NY.

[/ QUOTE ]
Coming to New York? Are you there too?

[ThaSaltCracka]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
In spite of TSC's avatar, which makes one think he finds everything interesting, this is not.

[/ QUOTE ]I agree, its about as interesting as you coming to NY.

[/ QUOTE ]
Coming to New York? Are you there too?

[/ QUOTE ]no

[Toro]

Props to Patrick and Lucas, damn you guys are good. Here it is in it's entirety as an email I received.


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! 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...

There's an interesting extension to the story about railroad gauges and horses' behinds.

When we 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 might 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 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!