RE: How Mil Specs Live Forever

["Thorpe, John" <thorpj@caepo1.columbiaSC.NCR.COM>]

Poster: "Thorpe, John" <thorpj@caepo1.columbiaSC.NCR.COM>


Greetings from Eldred!

     Since Alfredo is quoting a standard that is near and dear to
my heart, I'll set the record straight for him.  This is the first reply in 
a
thread on why US railroads use 4'8.5" as the standard width between
the rails.  This posting came up on rec.models.railroad, and was
probably cross-posted to misc.transport.rails.americas, etc.

     Evidence indicates that the story is mostly correct.  I can
probably dig up more info on this if there is serious interest.

In service,
Eldred

Scripsit Alfredo:

%How Mil Specs Live Forever
%
%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.

[ka-snip]

%Thus, we have the answer
%to the original questions. The United State standard railroad gauge
%of 4 feet, 8.5 inches derives from the original specification
%(MilSpec) for an Imperial Roman army war chariot. MilSpecs 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.
%_____________________________________________
%The above story came to me by email; I don't know
%who started it or if it's true.  It seems to me there
%should be one more step in the story: some Roman unit
%of length that the gauge is some round multiple of.
%Also, I thought every country in Europe had a different
%RR gauge (to force invaders to switch trains at the border).
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