Interesting

[Chris Pall <x97pall@wmich.edu>]

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 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 use
that odd wheel spacing? Well, if they tried to use any other spacing
the wagons would break on some of the old, long distance roads,
because that's the spacing of the old wheel ruts.

So who built these old rutted roads? The first long distance roads in
Europe were built by Imperial Rome for the benefit of 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 wagons,
were first made by Roman war chariots.
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 original questions. The United State
standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches derives from the
original specification  for an Imperial Roman army war chariot. Specs
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 chariots were made to be
just wide enough to accommodate the rear-ends of two war horses.

--
+==============================================================+
                       Christopher Pall
        Delphi Programmer & Western Michigan Student (CS)
                          ThinkBiz
                       Kalamazoo MI USA
                    email:X97PALL@WMICH.EDU

     Website:http://members.tripod.com/~ChrisPall/index.html
                         ICQ#:4287896
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