Fw:History 101

[Antimatter]

HISTORY 101
> > 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. Okay! 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 distance 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.
> > The United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is
> > derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war
> chariot.
> > And bureaucracies live forever.
> > So the next time you are handed a specification and wonder what
> > horse's *** came up with it, you may be exactly right, because the
> Imperial
> > Roman war chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the
> > back ends of two war horses. 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 SRBs. The SRBs are made by
> > Thiokol at their factory at Utah. The engineers who designed the
> > SRBs
> would
> > 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 happens to run through a tunnel in the
> > mountains. The SRBs 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 *** .... And you thought being a HORSE'S ***
> > wasn't important?

[Draggar]

There's something you don't read every day.
Very interesting... <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" />

[Major Kong]

Yeah that's an oldie, unfortunately it's a hoax . It makes you wonder how people can come up with these er...interesting stories? <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" />

[Platypus]

The above and an alternative here:

<a href="http://www.sdrm.org/faqs/gauge/" target="_blank">http://www.sdrm.org/faqs/gauge/</a>

[Wayward Clam]

Being horse's a$$ is important, after all, huh?

Well I guess that justifies certain Windrivers members...