If we're going to get off-topic, then...
enjoy!
Jez
IT'S JUST A QUESTION OF STANDARDS
The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5
inches, which is an exceedingly odd number.
Why was that gauge used ?
Because that is the way the railways were built 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 is 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 was the
spacing of the wheel ruts on those old roads.
So who built those old rutted roads?
Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (and in
England) for their legions. The roads have been used ever since.
And the ruts in the road?
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 alike in the matter of wheel spacing.
The US 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 arse 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.
Therefore, 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 arse.
And you thought being a horse's arse wasn't important ???
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