PlaymoFriends
General => News => Topic started by: Richard on February 24, 2009, 15:57:25
-
Old news that may be New news to many ...
(it certainly was new news to me.)
I wasn't sure where to put this. Please read my note at the end.
RAILROAD TRACKS ARE HOW WIDE APART?
(a 2000 year old engineering constraint)
Does the statement, "We've always done it like that," 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.
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. 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 back ends of the rear ends of two war horses ... or 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 SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at their factory in 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. And 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.
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 !!!
(You need look no further than your national government to confirm this.) ... ;)
NOTE: I am currently separated from my Playmobil, so I can't look at a Playmobil chariot or a Playmobil wagon or a Playmobil train to verify whether or not Playmobil is aware of this historical reference.
Because Playmobil adopted LGB's narrow gauge standard for their trains, the train tracks should not be as wide as the Roman chariot wheels. However, according to this historical reference, all the horse drawn wagons should be the same width as the Roman chariot wheels.
NOTE to MODERATORS: You may choose to move this topic to the PFZ. Even though there is some humor/humour in this article, I really didn't know where the best fit might be. I even thought about putting it under trains, but didn't want our Roman theme collectors to miss it. On the other hand, after everyone has read it, we may just want to delete it ... ;D
All the best,
Richard
-
Unfortunately "we've always done it that way" is used to justify many things in business too, regardless of whether it's the best way.
Many ideas I've had got shouted down with the "we've always done it that way" excuse for non-change.
Oddly, a few innovations I have quietly introduced are still done my way...
-
Old habbits die hard . Humans are creatures of habbit and if there is one thing we do not like it is change .
-
Richard, there's a lot of interesting points in that article. Could you imagine if someone working at Thiokol didn't have the foresight to make sure the booster rockets could be shipped through train tunnels?
There's lot of other examples about standards, like the trusty keyboard we're typing on. The arrangement of the letters was designed to minimize jamming of of mechanical keys, in effect slowing the typist down. There are other keyboards that offer much more efficient typing rates, but...
-
Could you imagine if someone working at Thiokol didn't have the foresight to make sure the booster rockets could be shipped through train tunnels?
We have no idea how many times this happens , especially when transporting on highways and the designers did not take into account overpass heights :eh?: all we hear about is some transport truck destroying something :doh:
-
Super nice article :yup:.
But! There are many differnt gauge standards. You have regular and narrow gauge, south african, russian,.... in total there are six gauge standard
-
Super nice article :yup:.
But! There are many differnt gauge standards. You have regular and narrow gauge, south african, russian,.... in total there are six gauge standard
Plus for some years Great Britain had two "standard" gauges - the 4ft 8.5 inches one and the wider (6ft or so) gauge of the Great Western Railway.
But there were sound reasons for Stephenson choosing the 4ft 8.5ins gauge - it was the gauge used at the Killingworth Colliery where he had built his first locomotive and he presumably had an eye to railways being used by the colliery for transporting coal and so it made sense to use the gauge which the was the same as the colliery. And if something works, why change it?
-
Funny stuff, Richard! :lol: :lol: :lol:, also very interesting.
Wonder where the term "horse sense" came from ???
Jimbo
-
Nah: of course not. Hans Beck had to make the horses thinner than actual horses, because of the distance of the playmobil right to left leg. (And even modern horses design have these animals thinner than the real ones ...) So, there's some difference in sizes that probably caused a lot of "mistakes", but these ones are understandable. As undestandable as a human head isn't perfectly round ...
Small differences in the playmo' world, and their "reasons" ... ;D
(I'd have missed the article, cause I seldom go to the trains section ... :-[ )
So, Thanks for posting it here, Richard! :yup:
Gus
:blackhair:
-
A little snopes here, fwiw ...
http://www.snopes.com/history/american/gauge.asp
-
We have no idea how many times this happens , especially when transporting on highways and the designers did not take into account overpass heights :eh?: all we hear about is some transport truck destroying something :doh:
What's worse is when the DOT sublets a repaving job to an outside source, & they grind the pavement down as needed, then repave under an overpass, & lower the clearance height to the the bottom of the bridge overhead by building up the surface more than the original without changing the clearance sign to compensate for the shorter distance always saying "we were going to do that tomorrow" ::). Along comes what is called an 18 wheeler condo high roof sleeper moving along @ their usual speed because they have been this same route forever, & WHAM :0! The whole upper section of the cab sleeper roof is torn off, the poor driver can't understand what just happened :eh?:, his co driver is to say the least jolted out of bed :omg:, & his safety director is going crazy on the cell phone due to loss, & schedule :hissyfit:! It all goes down hill from there!
Bill
-
A little snopes here, fwiw ...
Hello, Peter ...
I am a great fan of Snopes, and usually check everything ... especially political references. However, I didn't think to check this somewhat humorous historical article. First, because it sort of made sense and, second, because it was intended to be light humor using loosely connected historical possibilities.
Regardless, I think that this Snopes report is really interesting because of their own "disclaimer" in the first line which states, "This is one of those items that - although wrong in many of it's details - isn't exactly false in an overall sense."
What the heck does that mean? "isn't exactly false in an overall sense."
(I've never seen this kind of "back pedaling" in a Snopes report before.)
The person who wrote this then goes on to say, "and is perhaps more fairly labeled as "True, but for trivial and unremarkable reasons."
Peter, thanks for this very "interesting" and amusing Snopes link.
All the best,
Richard
-
Regardless, I think that this Snopes report is really interesting because of their own "disclaimer" in the first line which states, "This is one of those items that - although wrong in many of it's details - isn't exactly false in an overall sense."
What the heck does that mean? "isn't exactly false in an overall sense."
(I've never seen this kind of "back pedaling" in a Snopes report before.)
The person who wrote this then goes on to say, "and is perhaps more fairly labeled as "True, but for trivial and unremarkable reasons."
I could not figure out what they were saying also , it started to sound like our politicians double talk 8}
-
Richard,
Apologies my post might have seemed a little curt ;D Been rather busy and have had only a little time pop up for some air and PF forums :P
fwiw the same anecdote pops up in model rocketry (forums, usenet, etc) every so often (for the past decade at least!) - that's where I learned a little more each time.
-
I could not figure out what they were saying also , it started to sound like our politicians double talk 8}
I think what they mean is that although the account isn't completely true, there is a large element of truth in it, i.e. many rail gauges we have nowadays are based on previous vehicle gauges, which really is what you'd expect. Innovators rarely start with a clean sheet, and this was certainly the case for rail transport as railways or tramways of one sort or another had pre-existed the steam engine for some time and it made sense to use the same gauge as it meant existing wagons could be used on the new system. And, of course, the design of those original wagons was influenced by earlier wagons, again because it meant existing jigs etc could be used. Moreover, the 4ft 8.5ins gauge in Great Britain also had the law behind it. Every railway had to be authorised by Act of Parliament and by 1835 there was a standard clause in these Acts specifying the 4ft 8.5ins gauge. An exception was the Great Western Act of 1835 which meant that Brunel could go ahead with the GWR broad gauge, although eventually this had to be abandoned because of the cost and inconvenience of transhipment where journeys started on standard gauge and ended on GWR broad gauge and vice versa.
-
Richard,
Apologies my post might have seemed a little curt ;D Been rather busy and have had only a little time pop up for some air and PF forums :P
fwiw the same anecdote pops up in model rocketry (forums, usenet, etc) every so often (for the past decade at least!) - that's where I learned a little more each time.
No apology necessary, Peter ... ;D
I really appreciated and enjoyed your Snopes link and didn't think that you were curt at all. (Not even a "little" bit.) ... ;)
All the best,
Richard
-
And the pre-predecessor of the Mercedes-Benz S-class had been made larger than the one before and suddenly didn't fit anymore on the goods train for passenger cars ... so better the engineers had oriented on sizes used before ...
-
And the pre-predecessor of the Mercedes-Benz S-class had been made larger than the one before and suddenly didn't fit anymore on the goods train for passenger cars ... so better the engineers had oriented on sizes used before ...
I will volunteer to drive them to their destinations ;)