From ancient Rome to the space-age, via a railway siding...?

[Highlander]

I got sent this through the usual junk mail ring of buddies but as there is interest in the railroads here I'd thought I'd post it - how accurate it is I have no idea - the text is "as-is"...

Railroad tracks.
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 designed 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 had 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 (including England ) for their legions. Those 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 this?' , you may be exactly right. Imperial Roman army chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the rear ends of two war horses. (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 the current Horses Asses in Washington are controlling everything else...

[OldManC]

I got this email a month or two ago and didn't even think to post it here. I blew it! Thanks for the reminder Kenny. I love stuff like this...

[Psycho Bass Guy]

The part about the SRB's is fiction. They are (soon to be were) delivered to the launch site by boat, specifically because they are too big for rail travel.

[Lightyear]

I know for a fact that the fuel tank is delivered via barge as it is made just outside of New Orleans - it travels via the Intercoastal Waterway.  The assembly plant is very close to the Intercoastal.

Just curious as to how the solid boosters would move by water from Utah?  I honestly don't know but I'll ask someone next time I'm at JSC working.

[TBird1958]

I can add a bit here........

Amongst railfans the discussion of guage is pretty common knowledge, to add tho - Hitler dispised the Russians in WWII for using a 5 foot gauge, no compatabilty at all with the rest of the European continent, every mile of captured track either had to be relaid or equipment and vital supplies had to be unloaded and transfered to Russian rolling stock. Not as big a factor as the well publicized winter but definately a big thorn in the logistical side of Barbarossa.

As for rocket motors on flat cars I have pictures of two types used on the Rio Grande that definately transported them, some were 50 foot cars paired up with a solid drawbar between them, themotors themselves travelled in what looks like a standard refrigerated shipping container, notable only because it had the Rio Grande logo instead of an overseas container line. I've seen these cars in person here in Washington, they travel to the Navy base at Bangor, with rocket motors for the Submarine missle systems.
I also have a shot of a much larger 8 axle car used to transport rocket motors produced at Bacchus, Utah, I don't know if they are the ones Kenny is writing about tho. The car is large with 8 axles but pprobably not excessive clearance.
I'll check later for some shots, the reference is Rio Grande color guide to Freight and Passenger equipment by Jim Eager.



 

[Big_Stu]

The part about the SRB's is fiction.

So is the rest of it about the Romans. There were loads of different guages in use in various parts of Britain before the invention of steam engines. Mostly horse drawn or cables powered by static engines at the end of lines at mines etc. But since Stephenson made rail travel popular he just used the popular guage from the area where he lived & the rest of the industry fell into place to suit what he pioneered; Brunel tried to buck the trend with wide guage tracks for a while but he failed. Nice story though.

[Lightyear]

Found this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NASA_Railroad_Transport's_SRB's.jpg

[Dave W]

Snopes is your friend 

[sniper]

I have hauled one of the fuel tanks from Cali to Louisiana. It was packaged like a deck of cards in many boxes with many panels in thier own slots inside the many boxes.

The rockets are resuable and basically they are put together where I don't know but, remember the shuttle that blew up? Now remember the blown up pictiures of just before it blew showing the fire coming out of a joint on one of the rockets...they called it a leaking gasket?

[Psycho Bass Guy]

The rockets are resuable and basically they are put together where I don't know but, remember the shuttle that blew up? Now remember the blown up pictiures of just before it blew showing the fire coming out of a joint on one of the rockets...they called it a leaking gasket?

They are in cylindrical sections that stack on top of each other like thick doughnuts. I realize now that I wasn't clear enough in my inital post; the final delivery to the launch site is via water. I have some killer pics of the pre-launch process I found a couple years ago on a Russian website of all places. Of course, west of the Mississippi, the sections travel by rail.

[TBird1958]

To add to my post, here's what the Rio Grande's version of the flatcar looks like, this one is in service moving Trident missile motors.


And here's an interesting link to some ex Rio Grande locomotives. After lenghty service the were retired then rebuilt with "narrow gauge" (66") trucks and are in service in Argentina.

As a sidelight I have two number boards from ( the openings above the cab)  3070's sisters (3067 and 3082) in my own small collection of memorabilia, I greatly prize them as the railroad was merged out of exsistance into the Union Pacific. 
http://www.mtnwestrail.com/drgw/argentina.htm 

[uwe]

Hey, it was entertaining to read (truth is generally overrated, not just in this forum) and pleasantly more coherent than Kenny's other "stream of consciousness" stuff!!!  

Now he's gonna chase me with his Spitfire again ...

[TBird1958]

"Now he's gonna chase me with his Spitfire again ..."


I thought he had a Hellcat?

[uwe]

Yes, one of the few Battle of Britain worn ones.  Man, how it did take down those Kraut Zeros! "Himmel, meine Zeke brennt!!!"

[TBird1958]

We kid, Kenny. We kid