A Tail of a Tale

I'm writing you today from Sydney. We’ve brought our oldest grandson for a weekend in the big city now that he's reached the ripe old age of 13.  Looking at him, almost all grown up and carrying the image of his Mom and Dad makes me tear up every time. Just to imagine all that’s gone before, in and thru so many lives and now reflected in this young man! It makes me wonder how much of what we see around us has a great story to tell.

Here's just one example, from an article I came across the other day. I hope you enjoy it. I quote... 

“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?  Well, because that's the way they built them in England, and English engineers designed the first US railroads.

“Why did the English build them like that?

“Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the wagon tramways, and that's the gauge they used.  

“So why did 'They' use that gauge then?

“Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they had used for building wagons, which used the same wheel spacing.  

“Why did the wagons have that particularly odd wheel spacing?

“Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break more often on some of the old, long distance roads in England.. You see, that's the spacing of the wheel ruts.  

“So, how did those rutted roads come to be?  

“Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (including England) for their legions.  Those roads have been used ever since.  

“Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts and everyone else had to match, or run the risk 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're handed a ‘specification/procedure' process and wonder, ‘What horse's behind came up with this?’ You may be exactly right.

"You see, the Imperial Roman army chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the rear ends of two war horses.

“But wait; there’s yet one more 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 SRBs 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 SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site.  The railroad line from the factory happens to run thru a tunnel in the mountains, and the SRBs had to fit thru that tunnel.  The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track, as you know now, is about as wide as two horse's behinds.

“So, the major Space Shuttle design feature, of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system in history was determined over 2000 years ago by the width of a horse's behind.” 

Have a great weekend!

Marsha

 


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