Theos-Talk Archives (August 2002 Message tt00067)

Eldon, I wished they used such a standard here in
Australia. Before rail reforms took place in the 1980s
the railroads used to be slightly wider in New South
Wales than they were in Victoria. So every time a
passenger train or freight train arrived at the
states' border everyone and thing had to get out and
change. As you could imagine this was very inefficient
and must have been very frustrating. But I'm not too
sure if they used the old 4 feet 8.5 inches in the
end!!


--- Eldon B Tucker <eldon@theosophy.com> wrote:
> Here's something funny that I saw at work. (It
> illustrates how a
> tradition carries on long after its original purpose
> for existence
> has ended. Perhaps we find the same in some of our
> philosophical
> ideas? Could there be ideas that relate to the
> circumstances of
> earlier times that aren't as relevant in today's
> world?)
> 
> -- Eldon
> 
> ----
> 
> OK, for all you would be historians out there.
> Here's a true one
> that will make you think. 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! 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 comes 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 SRB's.
> 
> The SRB's are made by Thiokol at their factory at
> Utah. The
> engineers who designed the SRB's would have
> preferred to make them
> a bit fatter, but the SRB's 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 SRB's 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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> 
> 


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