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The US standard railroad gauge (width between the two rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number. Why was that gauge used? Train
Because that's the way they built them in England, and the US 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 in the roads? Roman war chariots first formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels. Since the chariots were made for (or by) Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing.
The United States 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 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. Thus, we have the answer to the original question.
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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 in 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 had 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, the major 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!
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Did you know that the size of a chair is determinated by the width of human ass? omg lol roflmao really makes you thing baka desu senpai
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>>1029783
Nobody says four feet eight and a half inches.
You say 56.5 inches. Stop being a pleb foamer and learn the jargon.
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>>1029784
The depth of your mom's pussy was determined by the length of my cock.
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>>1029799
Woah
Absolutely devastated
Blown
The
Fuck
Out
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>>1029795
At least i try
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>>1029783
Why are trainfags so autistic
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>>1029783
It's a good explanation except for one thing: it's not actually true. The roads didn't have standard ruts as a result of Roman actions, and some very early railways had different gauges. The 4'8.5" gauge was used by George Stephenson who built a lot of railways, so the British, and later the Americans, subsequently decided to standardise on that gauge.
>>1029784
Any loading gauge can be compared to a number of horse's rear ends. That doesn't mean it's related.
>>1029795
Nobody says 56.5 inches.
Standard gauge is 1435mm.
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>>1029824
>...says the blubbering lycrafag because the thread isn't about bicycles
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>>1029783
http://www.snopes.com/history/american/gauge.asp
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>>1029908
snopes has really gone down the drain
>"it's obvious that rail gauge is similar to roman chariot width"
>"just like clothes in the middle ages are similar sized to modern clothes"
>comparing something artificial and arbitrary as chariot wheel gauge to clothes that fit on a human being which is a given size
JUST
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>>1029795
>Didn't start using metric
Ahem.
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>>1029783
I wish the Nazis won WW2. Then there'd be 3 meter gauge railways instead of this lame standard gauge shit everywhere.
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>>1029988
But there'd be no Jews to finance it.
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>>1029992
u wot m80 boy?
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>>1030012
>Standard equipment
No, it's not standard across Europe. Not even close.
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>>1029783
>You will never coast from Los Angeles to Seattle in an F40PH in Phase III ever again
WHY GOD?!
WHY DID YOU ME ON THIS EARTH 20 YEARS TO LATE?!
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>>1032239
wait this was a thing?
im so depressed right now
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>>1030016
Yes it is. And I have one word for you: e-l-e-c-t-r-i-f-i-e-d.
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>>1032239
at least you can cruise from Halifax to Montreal, Montreal to gaspe,(both with cars originally built for Eurostar, but shipped to Canada when Britain didn't want them) and Toronto to Vancouver with a rebuilt one
t. that VIA shill who has reposted this pic for months.
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>>1029795
What if I say 1435 mm
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>>1029783
Wheel lengths were originally measured from the outermost portion so the standard gauge used to be considered 60" until it was determined that the flange was better positioned on the crib side of the wheel instead of the shoulder making the new measurement 56.5" you fucking retard
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>>1033767
Me on the left.
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>>1029992
At least we have electrification and concrete sleepers that won't rot 10 yrs after its implantation.
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>>1029783
It should be 1000 mm all over America desu
Thread posts: 28
Thread images: 7
Thread images: 7