The Letterville BullBoard: In case you were wondering........(OT)

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Posted by Mike Clayton (Member # 723) on :

Got this from my father in an email today.

The U.S. standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4
feet, 8.5
inches. That is an exceptionally odd number. Why was that gauge used?
Because that's the way they built them in England, and the U.S.
railroads
were built by English expatriates. Why did the English build them that
way?
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. So why did the wagons have that
particular
odd 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?
The first long distance roads in Europe (and England) were built by
Imperial
Rome for their legions. The roads have been used ever since. And the
ruts in
the roads?
The ruts in the roads, which everyone had to match for fear of
destroying
their wagon wheels, were first formed by Roman war chariots. Since the
chariots were made for (or by) Imperial Rome, they were all alike in
the
matter of wheel spacing. The U.S. standard railroad gauge of 4 feet,
8.5
inches derives from the original specification for an Imperial Roman
war
chariot.
Specifications 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 war chariots were made
just
wide enough to accommodate the back end of two war horses. Thus we have
the
answer to the original question.
Now the twist to the story.......
When we see a space shuttle sitting on it's launching pad, there are
two
booster rockets attached to the side of the main fuel tank. These are
solid
rocket boosters, or SRB's. The SRB's are made by Thiokol at their
factory in
Utah.
The engineers who designed the SRB's might have preferred to make them
a bit
fatter, but the SRB's had to be shipped by train from the factory to
the
launch site. The railroad line from the factory had to run through a
tunnel
in the mountains. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track,
and
the railroad track is about as wide as two horses' behinds.
So, the major 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!!!

Don't you just love engineering?

------------------
Mike Clayton
MC Graphics
Barnegat, NJ
http://mcgraphics.visualnoise.com/
mike@visualnoise.com
AOL IM: mcgrafix

"Youth and enthusiasm is no match for old age and treachery!"

Posted by Kookaburra (Member # 254) on :

I got this one sent to me a while back.... was surprised that something that ancient could determine something this modern (if you get my meaning)

So.... who determined how wide two horses behinds were? *grin*

------------------
From Katie Wright (aka Kookaburra), 17 year old signie wannabe from Australia

"The world is my garden. A place where magic grows on trees"

Posted by old paint (Member # 549) on :

GOD ...when they built the arc of the covenate..and then GOD & NOAH when they built the ARC.....they are so many "cubits" by so many "cubits", and a cubit is about the same size as HORSES A**.....
think this will go without any disagreements? hehehehehehehehe

------------------
joe pribish-A SIGN MINT
2811 longleaf Dr.
pensacola, fl 32526
850-944-5060
BEWARE THE TRUTH.....YOU MAY NOT LIKE WHAT YOU FIND

Posted by Bill Preston (Member # 1314) on :

Okay, let's see if I have this straight-- It is possible to reverse engineer this whole width of the tunnel, width of the railroad tracks, etc, all the way back a couple of thousand years to the time of the Romans and the width of two of their horses rear ends. I have to ask-- why the hell bother when all you have to do is hit the highways of America the beautiful and you will find all the horse's asses you could ever want.

------------------
Bill Preston
Fly Creek, N.Y. USA
wpreston2@stny.rr.com

Posted by Kookaburra (Member # 254) on :

hey OP, what if you're an athiest?

------------------
From Katie Wright (aka Kookaburra), 17 year old signie wannabe from Australia

"The world is my garden. A place where magic grows on trees"

Posted by old paint (Member # 549) on :

then the bible is an ENCYCLOPEDIA........

------------------
joe pribish-A SIGN MINT
2811 longleaf Dr.
pensacola, fl 32526
850-944-5060
BEWARE THE TRUTH.....YOU MAY NOT LIKE WHAT YOU FIND

Posted by Mikes Mischeif (Member # 1744) on :

Mike, Is your dad Paul Harvey?...as in "The rest of the story?"

------------------
Mike Duncan
Lettercraft Signs
Alexandria VA

From here on down, its all up hill.

Posted by Si Allen (Member # 420) on :

Sorry Ol' Paint...a cubit is 18", unless you are using a Royal Cubit, whick is 2o".

------------------
Si Allen #562
La Mirada, CA. USA
(714) 521-4810
ICQ # 330407
"SignPainters do It with Longer Strokes!"

95% of all accidents occur immediately after the words "Hey...watch this."

Brushasaurus on Chat

Gladly supporting this BB !

Posted by Chris Elliott (Member # 1262) on :

or.....

To Convert From ______Into ______Multiply By
Cubits…………………….Centimeters……..45.72 to 55.9
Feet…………….....…1.5
Inches……………....18 to 22
Cubit is the distance from the elbow to the finger tip:
Cubit (Bible)……………..Inches……………21.8
Cubit (Egypt 2650BC)…...Inches………...….20.6
(Babylon 1500BC)...Inches……………20.9
(Assyrian 700BC)…Inches...………….21.6
(Jerusalem 1 AD). Inches….………..20.6
(Druid Eng 1 AD)… Inches……...……20.4
(Black,Arabia 800AD) Inches…………21.3
(Mexican – Aztec)…Inches……………20.7
(Ancient Chrina)….Inches…………...20.9
(Ancient Greece)…..Inches……………18.2
(England)…………..Inches……………18
(Northern3000BCto1800AD)..Inches..26.6

Katie, to answer your question about who decided how wide two horses asses are... my guess is that it was the guy standing behind the two horsesafter he found out he had to build the chariots.

------------------
Chris Elliott
1longshot@msn.com
cell 620-845-0264

[This message has been edited by Chris Elliott (edited September 01, 2001).]

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