A horse's rear ....

Jogeephus · Aug 29, 2011

..... you'll never view one of these the same after reading this.

A Railroad Track is the Width of Two Horses

American railroad tracks are 56.5" wide (the "gauge") because the English built the first railroads in America and they used that width. Why did they use that width? 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 were used for building wagons which used that wheel spacing.

Why did wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing? Because older wagon ruts throughout England used that spacing, and if they changed it, wagon wheels would break by either falling into or being forced out of the old ruts, which were 56.5" wide.

The old ruts were that size because the roads were built by the Romans, who arrived in England in 54 BC and left about 400 AD. Their wagons, and their chariots before their wagons, used that spacing, and that spacing was used all over Europe and wherever Rome conquered, because their wagons used the identical wheel base everywhere. So the modern railroad track width derives from the Roman chariot.

Why was the Roman chariot track width 56.5"? Because that was the width of a chariot that would equal the width of two "standard" Roman horses. Thus, wagon and horses would fit through the same narrow street. Specifications and bureaucracies live forever!

Such curious dimensions continue today. A space shuttle sitting on its launch pad has two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs, 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 just wide enough to accomodate a railroad car, and the railroad track is about as wide as two horses' behinds, (and we now know why) so the booster rockets were made to fit.

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 two horse's ass!

I can't help but wonder if they had any influence on O-ring design. :???:

chrisy · Aug 29, 2011

There is a lot of debate on this one as to whether it is true, it is said it is used to make all the railroads interconnectable, as there were so many that were not before the Civil War, and goods had to be transported by hand cart onto the next train and as this was a long and arduous process, Government decided it would be best to make all the railroads the same size, and 56.6 was used. It was chosen as it is the most effective and comfortable width for a smoother ride for the passenger and freight can be moved quicker. They changed the rails from iron to steel as it could be made stronger and longer. No I am not a nerd, but I have watched so many programmes on train documentries, as my Husband is a bit of a train buff, (that's my story and I'm sticking to it)

backhoeboogie · Aug 29, 2011

You are right Chrisy. It is in the history books. Difference RRs here in the U.S. had different width tracks. Sort of a "you can't use mine" mentality when it came to the tracks. Then the government stepped in.

The rest of it may be correct. I dunno. It may be why the standard was set.