General Chat

Railroad tracks. This is fascinating.
>
> Be sure to read the final paragraph; your
> understanding of it will depend on
> the earlier part of the content.
>
> 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 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'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.
> 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 dist ance roads in England ,
> because that's the spacing
> of the wheel ruts.
>
> So who built those old rutted roads? Imperial Rome
> built the first long
> distance roads in Europe (and England ) for their
> legions. The roads have
> been used ever since.
>
> And the ruts in the roads? 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 all alike in the
> matter of wheel spacing. Therefore the United
> States standard railroad
> gauge
> of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original
> specifications for an
> Imperial Roman war chariot. Bureaucracies live
> forever.
>
> So the next time you are handed a
> Specification/Procedure/Process and
> wonder 'What horse's ass came up with it?' you may
> be exactly right.
> Imperial Roman army chariots were made just wide
> enough to accommodate the
> rear ends of two war horses. (Two horses' asses.)
> 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 SRB's.; The SRB's are
> made by Thiokol at their
> factory in Utah . The engineers who designed the
> SRB's would have preferred
> to make them a bit fatter, but the SRB's 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, and the SRB's 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.
>
> 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?
> Ancient horse's asses control almost everything...
> and CURRENT Horses Asses are controlling everything
> else.

BRILLIANT STUFF lol
ta for sharing that Crougar
Paula x

lol

well done

Gill

Great stuff!! Thanks for sharing it.

Steph x

A nice story but sadly a myth. The UK railway gauge was determined by George Stephenson because that just happened to be the width of the tracks for wagons at Killingworth Colliery. It quickly became the standard and a Royal Commission looked into it. The Gauge Act was passed in 1846 by Parliament making that gauge compulsory for all new railways.

Mac
Didn't they abandon the 7ft gauge for 4 ft 8½". Because the 7ft gauge meant a much higher cost of track (to take the heavier loads) & because almost twice the amount of land required?

Steve.

Stevie,

Where the two gauges met, they had to unload from one truck to another which must have been a real pain i t b

Eventually the decision was made to go to one gauge for the whole network and I think because there were more railways using the Stevenson Gauge, that was chosen

They did double track on some lines by putting an extra line inside the 7', but you can imagine the problems with junctions and cross-overs

Mac

I remember a documentary covering this some years ago. I remember a scene reconstructed about having to reload wagons where the two gauges met. Two different gauges on junctions must have caused many derailments.
I suppose like many advancements & changes. Its often the most popular or the one that takes the biggest market share that goes forward. And not necessarily technicalogicaly the best.

Didn't they have a similar problem with different gauges when the Berlin wall fell in & Germany was unified? The gauge in old East Germany wasn't the same as in the West.

Steve

Not into foreign railways Steve

Been interested in British railways since I was a likkle boy when I travelled to Newcastle from Kings Cross for our annual two weeks holiday every year including WW2

Most of my life I have always been interested in Aviation and Canals as well
I had a Narrow boat for 6 years and travelled all the Canals in England except 2
It is also why I rebuild old Aeroplanes and Helicopters as a hobby at The Yorkshire Air Museum nr York and at the South Yorkshire Aircraft Museum at Doncaster

Mac

Hi Mac, I hope you keeping well mate.

I'm not into continental railways, its was just one of those things that stick in the mind.

Today I visited the Wakes Colne Railway Museum. The main platform is still part of the of the railway network & also part musuem. Located on the Sudbury & Marks Tey line, whilst the rest of the station & sidings, engine shed are the museum.
Many of the buildings & footbridge have been rescued over the years from different parts of the line....more of a montage of history. But still very much worth preserving.

The station leads onto the Chappel viaduct. 32 arches, up to 70ft tall & 7 million bricks & It took just two years to build!.I doubt it could be done today.

Regards,
Steve

Stevie,

I think I am very lucky to live where i live

National Railway Museum...........18 miles

North York Moors Railway............7 Miles

And not too far for the Embsay Railway nr Skipton

Mac

For the Newbies

Time for more comments

Ditto

Hello there !!