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re-butt-al?
--- In realtraders@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "H&F Feld" <ariel@xxxx> wrote:
> GREAT story but go to the following link for a rebuttal:
> http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/railwidth.htm
> Harry
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: ira
> To: REAL TRADERS
> Sent: Friday, January 10, 2003 2:38 PM
> Subject: [RT] A weekend thought
>
>
> 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 spec and told we have always
done it that way and wonder what horse's ass 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.
>
> 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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