British rail gauge question

[ron]

Can anyone tell me why the standard rail gauge ended up as 4ft 8 1/2 inches??

Ron

[heyfordian18]

Ron
When the Stockton and Darlington Railway was built by Stephenson, the wagons used for the construction were bought from the Hetton Wagonway. They had, in common with the Wylam Plateway and the Killingworth railroad, 5ft between the centres of the wheels, and at the time this was common for such wagons. As the wagons were intended to be fitted with flanged wheels for use on the new railway, the rails were laid to match the new wheels, and ended up at 4ft 8 1/2" apart.
Despite other gauges being used on other new railways such as 7ft 0 1/4" and 5ft 3", Stephenson's idea won through, but just think what a fabulous system we would have now if 7ft had prevailed!!!!!1
regards
H18

[steammadman]

Railgauge the right one and the wrong one, dont let's go down that road.
the gwr boys give us east coast men enogh grief as it is.
NUFF SAID.

[Steve M. W]

Why is the track gauge 4ft 8 1/2 inches?

Because its the mean distance between the neck and ankles of damsels in distress.

Steve

[ron]

Here's what I was told!!

HISTORY AT IT'S BEST

Does the statement, "We've always done it that way" ring any bells?

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 ass came up with it, you may be exactly right, because the Imperial Roman army chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the back ends of two war horses.


Now to add a 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 ass.


Ron ;D ;D

[3405jimmy]

Wish it was 3ft 6” then I would have somewhere to run if I win the pools and buy a 15F and a 25NC before the all go under the torch in SA

Jim

[greasemonkey]

You'll have to make do with the smaller versions then Jim ! Not that they are exactly small!!!!

Andy

[spurley]

Hey Ron, do you get 'The Link' too?

For the uninformed; this story appeared in full on the back page of this month's newssheet from MESNI which arrived at home this morning!

I thought the question was a coincidence, if Ron isn't a MESNI member then that's got to be a double

Cheers

Brian

[steamjohn248]

Ah Well the old ones are the best, fell out lof my pram laughing at that one

Steamjohn

[cardiffpat]

I think I've been had, I just realised the date, April 1 !

[ron]

Brian
Never heard of MESNI till I looked up Google this morning and I thought the Link sold phones

Got it from a classic car site, presumbly it didn't originate there either, good for the 1st of Apr though.

Ron ;D

[Phil Sutton]

I think you will find this has appeared on several sites(including "Fastrack" the winson builders magazine),so probably some truth in it! ;D

Phil

[gwrfan]

Hi All,

I've heard that tale about the track gauge often, and several years ago! But take a look at this website. I thought it was very interesting reading. Certainly stuff there I never knew (nor did Phil, I bet, LOL):

www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Rail_gauge