Don’t know if this has been posted before. My sister sent me this, thought I would share it.
Railroad gauge
Fascinating Stuff . . .
And on another note: "…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!
Now you know, Horses’ Asses control almost everything.
Explains a whole lot of stuff, doesn’t it?" Steve
It might also be mention
Ave Caesar! Roma aeterna est!
And as long as I’m at it…
Senatus Populus Que Romanus!
If you’re going to be at it, do it as the Romans would. “Populusque” is one word: the additive suffix (technically it’s an enclitic particle, but that sounds vaguely non-family-friendly) meaning ‘and’ in the sense of ‘thoroughly together with’.
Why not try for INRI, a phrase from perhaps the greatest historical Roman supposed horse’s ass of all? …And it’s even the right time of year!
Don’t take EVERYTHING I say here so seriously!
When I’m serious, believe me, you’ll know it.
As far as the other horse’s patootie, let me quote the fictional Pontius Pilate from “Ben Hur”…
“Where there is greatness, either great government or great feeling, error also is great.”
Fiction, but it makes sense.
When I visited Rome in 1974, I was amused to note that the tramcars were lettered “SPQR”.
However, the horse width story of gauge selection is generally regarded as an urban myth.
M636C
Why are the rails 56 1/2 inches apart?
Probably because George Stephenson chose that gauge for the Stockton and Darlington back in 1830. Stephenson went on to manufacture locomotives to ‘Standard’ gauge for the British Isles, the Continent and ‘The Colonies’ (US and Canada.)
Why? Because Stephenson had worked at a colliery with tracks gauged 56 inches. He freed up the gauge by 1/2 inch since the Stockton and Darlington would be running longer wheelbase rolling stock. (Brunel derided Stephenson’s ‘Standard’ gauge as, “Mine cart gauge,” and built his own railroad to 7 foot 1/4 inch gauge.)
So, why was that colliery using that gauge? GOOD question.
Chuck
Yeah. Five even feet, with the flanges on the outside of the plateways.
When you shift the flanges to the inside of the wheels, with clearance, and measure over those to get gauge, it’s not as surprising that you get an odd fraction.
The two-horse-chariot is a fun meme, but it shouldn’t be thought of as actual industrial history.
This “story” (Roman chariot to Thiokol boosters) I had seen before, but like the tomikawaTT explanation. What concerned me was, what is a colliery? As the “mine cart gauge” would HINT at what a colliery is ……I had to look it up to see: a coal mine and the buildings and equipment associated with it……why “don’t da word got an “A” in it”???..is coal called COLL in England?
All that latin talk ust-jay ire-tays ee-may out-hay.
Ja, genau!
Most anything else with some sort of spacing is measured “Center to Center” (studs in a wall are usually “16-inch on center”).
Wheels originally were like a pully with a groove around the middle of the tread, (or flanges on both sides) to fit on the logs used as rails. That “track” was “60 inches on center”.
When it was understood that the outside flanges were a major cause of derailments if the wheels are rigid to one axle, they were removed and then the only measurement of any meaning was the “gauge” (or inside of rail to inside of rail). Thus the dimention was 4’ 8.5".
No, originally wheels were … well, flat wagon wheels, like any other road-vehicle wheels, and the flanges were on the flat ‘plateways’ that were laid to provide a smooth and level surface just under the (relatively thin) treads of those wheels.
Whether it would make sense to measure the ‘gauge’ of a plateway anywhere except between the external ‘flange’ faces – which, after all, is the control dimension of effective ‘gauge’ in that application – would be up to whoever was installing or managing a system at a particular colliery or wherever, and I do not have any hard information on specifics. (I think there is at least one paper in the Transactions of the Newcomen Society that takes this subject up, though.)
Opstay owingshay usyay utway ayay igpay ouyay areyay. (use W’s if so inclined…)
Insultedhay Iay amhay. Inhay Odayay Ihay otewray. (now if I could only do it with a Scottish accent, I’d be all set.)
So it was kind-a like we do outdoor model RRs. Sort of 22.5:1 or 25:1 or 32:1 or something. I figure it was giant aliens that set the guage.
to one and all CHECK this OUT http://www.thejournal.co.uk/news/north-east-news/river-tyne-200-year-old-5325105 thanks to richg1998 for the “find” endmrw0505161923
A post by Trevor Hodge, classical scholar and rail enthusiast
http://www.grijalvo.com/A_Trevor_Hodge/Roman_roads_gauge.htm
The original post is a myth and has zero to do with railway gauge. It ignores the development of railways in this and other countries where railways were first built in multiple gauge sizes and some even had wooden vs iron rails, etc. I believe standard guage was settled on for the purpose of interchanging rail cars and cargo and the gauge that was selected was the most common size in use at the time although on this last point I am not sure how the standard gauge was selected. Certainly had nothing to do with the Romans or horses for that matter.
Yeah - but it’s fun… [:D]