IP: an urban myth which may be not exactly right, but very funny

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

From: "Richard J. Solomon" <richard () goodread com>






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| Date: Friday, July 10, 1998 07:36:08
|
| Engineering Specifications Explained:
|
|
| 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 people 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 States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches
| derives from the original specification (Military Spec) for an
| Imperial Roman army war chariot.
|
| Why did the Romans choose that width?  Because the
| Imperial Roman chariots were made to be just wide enough
| to accommodate the back-ends of two war horses.
|
| So, the next time you are handed a specification and
| wonder what horse's ass came up with it, you may be
| exactly right.
|
|


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