BS: Railways & a horses ass

Subject: BS: Railways & a horses ass
From: Sttaw Legend
Date: 12 Jul 04 - 04:49 AM

Subject: Little known facts

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 spec and told we have always done it that way and wonder what horse's ass came up with that, 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 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. 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?

And now, you know, "the rest of the story."

Subject: RE: BS: Railways & a horses ass
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Jul 04 - 05:30 AM

I blame the Pope and his Pope-mobile

Subject: RE: BS: Railways & a horses ass
From: Splott Man
Date: 12 Jul 04 - 07:50 AM

My teacher said that railways in the UK used to be all sorts of different gauges (no reason given) and that when companies had to cooperate, they got together and took the average.

I don't belive either story.

But it's fun all the same.

Subject: RE: BS: Railways & a horses ass
From: Suffet
Date: 12 Jul 04 - 07:59 AM

Greetings!

It's a cute story, but false!.

Read what Barbara Mikkelson has to say to debunk this modern myth on her snopes.com website:

http://www.snopes.com/history/american/gauge.htm

--- Steve

Subject: RE: BS: Railways & a horses ass
From: GUEST,Keith A o Hertford
Date: 12 Jul 04 - 09:16 AM

Brunel built the Great Western Railway to a larger guage which was superior to the 4'8 used elsewhere. Unfortunately it had to be given up for compatibility to the more widely used narrow guage

Subject: RE: BS: Railways & a horses ass
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Jul 04 - 11:42 AM

Hells bells their has to be some truth in this lot - amazing, from romans to space ship what ever next.

Subject: RE: BS: Railways & a horses ass
From: Amos
Date: 12 Jul 04 - 01:15 PM

I don't see how you can call it widely used if it was a narrower gauge, Keith. Doesn't seem right somehow...


A

Subject: RE: BS: Railways & a horses ass
From: curmudgeon
Date: 12 Jul 04 - 01:19 PM

Anyone who's been around horses at all should have noted that their rear end width most assuredly exceeds two feet, four and a quarter inches. Now those mechanical beasts that frequent the fronts of grocery and discount stores...

Subject: RE: BS: Railways & a horses ass
From: Eric the Viking
Date: 12 Jul 04 - 06:14 PM

When George Stephenson was building the Stockton & Darlington Railway he decided the rail gauge should be just over 4 ft 8 ins (1.44m). The reason for this was that was the width of the wagonway at Killingworth Colliery. However, after Stephenson had made this decision, other railway chief engineers followed his example and used the same rail gauge.

When Isambard Brunel was building the London to Bristol line in 1838 he decided to use what became known as the broad gauge (2.2 m) instead of the standard gauge (1.44m) on the line. Brunel argued that by using a wider track, he could provide larger and faster locomotives. It was also pointed out by Brunel that the broad gauge was safer and that locomotives would be less likely to leave the rails on sharp bends.

By 1844 the Great Western Railway had opened a new line from Bristol to Exeter and from Bristol to Gloucester where it met the standard gauge of the Birmingham & Gloucester line. This created problems as passengers and goods had to be transferred from one train to another.

In 1845 a Royal Commission looked into the subject of the railway gauge. After a long investigation that included committee members asking railway engineers over 6,500 questions, it was decided to recommend the use of the standard gauge. The Gauge Act passed by Parliament in 1846 made the standard gauge compulsory for all new railways. However, the Great Western Railway retained its broad gauge until 1892, when it was converted to the standard gauge.



So there!

Subject: RE: BS: Railways & a horses ass
From: TheBigPinkLad
Date: 12 Jul 04 - 06:44 PM

Good try Eric but the Stockton - Darlington Railway began at a colliery called Jane Pit at Witton Park and the waggons went from there to Shildon. The coal waggons were hauled up the Brusselton incline by a stationary engine then hooked onto open passenger waggons and Locomotion 1 thence to Darlington and on to Stockton on Tees. So the line gauge must have matched the one already in operation between Witton Park and Shildon.

Subject: RE: BS: Railways & a horses ass
From: GUEST,John O'Lennaine
Date: 12 Jul 04 - 09:47 PM

Barbara Mikkelson's article agrees with everything Sttaw Legend quoted.

Her only complaint is with the semantics used to emphasise the inherrent humour.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Railways & a horses ass
From: Billy the Bus
Date: 12 Jul 04 - 11:45 PM

G'day,

'Tis odd where Mudcat threads lead my lonely brain-cell. This one has given me a few giggles - I've always been intrigued as to why the oddball measurement of 4'8½" became 'standard gauge'. I'd never though of relating it to the width of a horse's arse - howsomever... Is the horse a Welsh pit pony or a Clydesdale? (Or an ASS?)

Mumble.... I'm now going to thread-creep below the horse's 'ass' and get a kick out of getting my rocks off in Canada - if I gauge it right, left and centre....

CPR - crosses the Rockies at Kicking Horse Pass - I assume on 'standard gauge'. The pass was named for an incident involving a Scots geologist/doctor James Hector.

James later became the first head of New Zealand's Geological Survey - and surveyed a number of railway routes - 3'6" 'narrow gauge'...

Anyway....

Cheers - Sam - Stewart Island (NZ)

Subject: RE: BS: Railways & a horses ass
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Jul 04 - 02:25 AM

John O'Lennaine has it right

Barbara Mikkelson's position seems to be that It's true, but it ain't funny.

She says 'This is one of those items that -- although wrong in many of its details — isn't exactly false in an overall sense and is perhaps more fairly labelled as "True, but for trivial and unremarkable reasons."'

Who knew Snopes was so stuffy?

clint

Subject: RE: BS: Railways & a horses ass
From: Metchosin
Date: 13 Jul 04 - 04:25 AM

It is my understanding, that the Swiss, canny as they are, built their narrow gauge railways, to deliberately hamper the invasion of their country, by the military machines of other nations.

Subject: RE: BS: Railways & a horses ass
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Jul 04 - 04:32 AM

They maybe built them with their army knifes - the Romans had nothing to do with them though, at least I dont think so.....now thats got me thinking...

Subject: RE: BS: Railways & a horses ass
From: Metchosin
Date: 13 Jul 04 - 04:34 AM

Canadians have quite often thought that the railways were always in the domain of horses' asses. So much so, that during the Great Depression, one of the more common expletives, when the rainfall was too scant for decent crops, was "Goddam the CPR!"

Subject: RE: BS: Railways & a horses ass
From: Dead Horse
Date: 13 Jul 04 - 05:22 AM

The "military machines of other nations" had light railways for instant use in the field, and that was the same gauge as the Swiss narrow gauge.
It was the thought of running into Mary Poppins that deterred invasion!

Subject: RE: BS: Railways & a horses ass
From: Bert
Date: 13 Jul 04 - 08:37 AM

Metchosin, Narrow gauge railways are more suitable for the mountains.

Brunel himself built a railway in the mountains and used a narrow gauge, I can't remember where it was though.

Subject: RE: BS: Railways & a horses ass
From: Wolfgang
Date: 13 Jul 04 - 09:59 AM

Old thread from 1999 about the same story.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Railways & a horses ass
From: ced2
Date: 13 Jul 04 - 01:17 PM

If the width of an 'oss's ass determined that railways would have a gauge of 4'8.5" why did the Ffestiniog Railway, The Croesor Tramway (which was a railway) The Gorseddau, etc etc have a gauge of about 2', they all used 'osses to pull the slate wagons? Perhaps they had a special breed of narrow aresed welsh cobs?

Subject: RE: BS: Railways & a horses ass
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Jul 04 - 02:50 PM


The railway company's name is registered as Festiniog Railway Company Ltd not Ffestiniog

Subject: RE: BS: Railways & a horses ass
From: Amos
Date: 13 Jul 04 - 03:11 PM

Mikkelson statess:

""Very interesting, educational, historical, completely true, and hysterical"? One out of five, maybe. "

I doubt she would vote for "completely true". There are some histiorical bits in it, but they are woven together wrongly and used to paint false conclusions.

Subject: RE: BS: Railways & a horses ass
From: ced2
Date: 13 Jul 04 - 03:18 PM

Was the reason for only one "f" in the current registration of the Ffestiniog's name because (a)it was basically gricing saxons who could not be either bothered to check up on the proper spelling, or (b) were ignorant of the fact that a single "f" in Welsh is pronounced as the English "v" or (c)that they could not read the map where the correct spelling of Ffestiniog is clearly shown?

Subject: RE: BS: Railways & a horses ass
From: Bert
Date: 13 Jul 04 - 04:02 PM

gricing? Wassat?

Subject: RE: BS: Railways & a horses ass
From: Eric the Viking
Date: 13 Jul 04 - 04:03 PM

In 1813, George Stephenson built an engine, Blucher, named after the Prussian general, to run on a waggonway at Killingworth Colliery in Northumberland. When George Stephenson was building the Stockton & Darlington Railway he decided the rail gauge should be just over 4 ft 8 ins (1.44m). The reason for this was that was the width of the wagonway at Killingworth Colliery.SO as I wrote,the gauge was already established, Big Pink Lad. "So the line gauge must have matched the one already in operation between Witton Park and Shildon".It would do, as it was most likely the same guage as that of killingworth.

It was probably decided a lot earlier.

The Romans used flat stone blocks for their horse drawn wagons, early size about four foot wide. The remains from the Fosse way can be seen in Leicester museum.Stephenson had access to similar around the Stockton area. In 1776 iron plates were laid over wooden blocks to stop the wagons from sliding about (they had been wooded slats until then) In 1785 William Jessop built the first iron railway using separate rails supported on transverse wooden sleepers and spiked into place. Richard Trevethicks' locomotive was around the same width.

The actual "standard" gauge was not decided upon until 1845 a Royal Commission looked into the subject of the railway gauge. After a long investigation that included committee members asking railway engineers over 6,500 questions, it was decided to recommend the use of the standard gauge. The Gauge Act passed by Parliament in 1846 made the standard gauge compulsory for all new railways. However, the Great Western Railway retained its broad gauge until 1892, when it was converted to the standard gauge almost over a weekend.

Subject: RE: BS: Railways & a horses ass
From: Bert
Date: 13 Jul 04 - 04:30 PM

This site says that the ruts in a Roman Road averaged about 1.3 Meters apart. Which would make them somewhat smaller than 4feet 8 1/2 inches.

Subject: RE: BS: Railways & a horses ass
From: TheBigPinkLad
Date: 13 Jul 04 - 05:35 PM

In 1813, George Stephenson built an engine, Blucher, named after the Prussian general, to run on a waggonway at Killingworth Colliery in Northumberland. When George Stephenson was building the Stockton & Darlington Railway he decided the rail gauge should be just over 4 ft 8 ins (1.44m). The reason for this was that was the width of the wagonway at Killingworth Colliery.SO as I wrote,the gauge was already established, Big Pink Lad. "So the line gauge must have matched the one already in operation between Witton Park and Shildon".It would do, as it was most likely the same guage as that of killingworth.

Bit non-sequiteur, though Eric. The Killingworth gauge could have been based on the Witton Park gauge, or some other. Witton Park pit was in operation in the 1750s long before Geordie S. was born. The engine Blucher was a stationary engine that pulled waggons along the track via ropes; it was not a locomotive.

Not sure about the access to Roman stone slabs -- the Roman fort at Binchester (Vinovium) was pilfered by the Saxons to build the church at Escomb two miles from the Jane pit, but there's a dearth of Roman remains between there and Stockton. Certainly not enough slabs to lay a 30 mile railway.

I grew up in the North East and was taught that George made the lines gauge the same width as Roman chariots but have yet to see anything but anecdotal evidence. And I have measured the wheel ruts at Housteads Roman fort on the Wall and they are close-but-no-cigar. Oh, my god ... I'm a train spotter ...

Subject: RE: BS: Railways & a horses ass
From: jack halyard
Date: 13 Jul 04 - 05:43 PM

Perhaps the best comment on this subject was given to me on a business card by the late, great Australian poet Charlee Marshall. I quote;
"Aumeni orziz arziz onniz lain.
1 arzper orz."

               Good Health, Jack Halyard

Subject: RE: BS: Railways & a horses ass
From: Eric the Viking
Date: 13 Jul 04 - 07:14 PM

Big Pink Lad.It's not a thing worth arguing about, but Blucher was a locomotive not a stationary engine. The problem was it's tractive effort (how it gripped the rails and how much it could pull) were so weak that it hadly moved any wagons.So it was dismounted from it's chassis. You could look here if you are North easterner and want a bit more info.

http://www.thenortheast.fsnet.co.uk/page68.htm#1813

I'm no expert in the development of railways but have had quite a long and involved interest-was never a train spotter though. There was never a suggestion that the Roman stone slabs were used to build the modern (1800's) railway, just that they were there as a point of referrence.As for the gauge, as I said it was probably already in existance, irrespective of which line used it. It can't have been exclusive and probably was common to quite a few places. Me I prefer the one about him opening his arms and saying about that wide! Seems a bit more like a fun and likely practical thing to do.

What ever it's a bit late to change anything now, and like many other things, lost to the mists of time. Anyway, the gauge was about the same for the Surrey iron railway of 1801 (That's just after 6 o clock)

Subject: RE: BS: Railways & a horses ass
From: Eric the Viking
Date: 13 Jul 04 - 07:23 PM

The Surrey Iron railway was around 4 foot 2 inches. But this is from an American article that answers the original question.

One-track minds:
The US standard railroad gauge is 4ft 8 ½ in - an exceedingly odd number. Why was it used? Because that's the way they built them in England, and the US railroads were built by English expatriates. The English built them that way because the first railway lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railway tramways, and that's the gauge they used. Why did they use that gauge? Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs that they used for building wagons. So why did the wagons have that peculiar spacing? Well, if they tried to use any other, their wheels would break on many of the old, long-distance roads in England, because that was the spacing of the wheel ruts.

The first long-distance roads in Europe were built by Imperial Rome. The ruts in the roads, which everyone had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels, were first formed by Roman war chariots. The Imperial Roman war chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the back ends of two war horses. Thus we have the answer to the original question. The US standard railroad gauge of 4ft 8 ½ in derives from the original specification for an Imperial Roman war chariot.

Subject: RE: BS: Railways & a horses ass
From: ced2
Date: 14 Jul 04 - 02:37 PM

The original Middleton Colliery line was 4'0", but it had a "toothed wheel" to overcome the problems that "Blucher" encountered. The Middleton, long since standard gauge, is the world's oldest working steam railway.... was there today painting the cylinder covers for a loco called Percy... yes that one.... a 'orrible shade of green!

Subject: RE: BS: Railways & a horses ass
From: TheBigPinkLad
Date: 14 Jul 04 - 05:17 PM

.It's not a thing worth arguing about, but Blucher was a locomotive not a stationary engine.

Quite right Eric, I stand corrected.

Subject: RE: BS: Railways & a horses ass
From: Eric the Viking
Date: 14 Jul 04 - 05:18 PM

I used to spend loads of time on the NYMR and Bluebell, laying track, guarding etc. Great fun, alas, no time nowadays.

Subject: RE: BS: Railways & a horses ass
From: TheBigPinkLad
Date: 14 Jul 04 - 05:33 PM

Where you stationed Eric? I'm coming home (from Canada to County Durham) next year ... perhaps we could meet at a folk club and get pissed?

Subject: RE: BS: Railways & a horses ass
From: Fibula Mattock
Date: 15 Jul 04 - 05:32 AM

(Crikey, I come on here to get away from work! *grin*)

Apparently Stephenson later admitted that he would've liked a 5ft gauge, but by then 4ft8.5 was the default, because that was the width of the Stockton and Darlington railway - the idea being that it was open to anyone who wanted to run wagons on it, and the majority of wagons in the area were of this size.

Brunel was a bloodyminded, stubborn git going totally against the grain as usual - the main benefit of his broad gauge railway was economical (as carriage design and track construction eliminated many of the problems). I would've liked to try it out though!