Subject:
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Is this true?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.trains
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Date:
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Fri, 25 Feb 2000 20:30:27 GMT
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Viewed:
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709 times
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Hi all,
I copied the following from an email sent to me by a freind, can anyone
confirm or flame it?
The U.S. 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 the U.S. railroads were built
by English expatriates. 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? The first long-distance roads in Europe
(and England) were built by Imperial Rome for their legions. The roads have
been used ever since. And the ruts? The initial ruts, which everyone else had
to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels and wag-ons, were first
made by Roman war chari-ots. Since the chariots were made for or by Imperial
Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing.
Thus, we have the answer to the orig-inal question. The U.S. standard railroad
gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches derives from the original specification for an
Imperial Roman war chariot. Specifications and bureaucracies live forever. So
the next time you are handed a specification and wonder what horse's behind
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.
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: Is this true?
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| There is a more basic theory.. The 4'8 1/2" is measured to the inside edges of the rails. When the original railways were pioneered in Britain using horse/gravity power and correspondingly lighter section rail (40lb/foot) there is evidence to (...) (24 years ago, 25-Feb-00, to lugnet.trains)
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