Old Standards

[Vince Mrykalo]

This little item reminded me of Del Fandrich's introductory article he
wrote for the Journal that he mentioned in one of his posts a few days
ago, "If It Ain't Broke - Break It!".  Slightly different topic,
but....  maybe not so different, either.

"Bureaucracies and old standards never die...

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 the US
railroads
were built by English expatriates.

Why did the English people 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 use that odd wheel spacing?

Well, if they tried to use any other spacing the wagons would break on
some of the old, long distance roads, because that's the spacing of
the 
old
wheel ruts.

So who built these old rutted roads?

The first long distance roads in Europe were built by Imperial Rome
for
the benefit of their legions.  The roads have been used ever since.

And the ruts?

The initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of
destroying
their wagons, were first made by Roman war chariots.  Since the
chariots
were made for or by Imperial Rome they were all alike in the matter of
wheel spacing.  Thus, we have the answer to the original questions.

The United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches
derives
from the original specification for an Imperial Roman army 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
chariots were made to be just wide enough to accommodate the back-ends
of
two war horses."

Vince Mrykalo
mrykalov@byugate.byu.edu