#1: Railroad Tracks------------- Author: Vince, Location: Brisbane AUSTRALIAPosted: Sat Mar 16, 2013 6:29 am ---- A post from Elvis...
*Railroad tracks** *
*The U.S. 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
U.S. 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. In other words, bureaucracies
live forever.*
*So the next time you are handed a specification,
procedure, or 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.*
**
*Now,** **the twist to the story:
*
*When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, you
will notice that 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 larger, 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!*
*Now you know, horses' asses control almost
everything...explains a whole lot of stuff, doesn't it?*
#2: Re: Railroad Tracks------------- Author: Suzanne, Location: Eugene, OregonPosted: Sat Mar 16, 2013 6:58 am ---- That was so good!! Makes me think of VP Biden and shotguns, the size of his brain and the size of shot pellets, wonder what the connection is?
#3: Re: Railroad Tracks------------- Author: PaulS, Location: South-Eastern Washington - the StatePosted: Sat Mar 16, 2013 7:18 am ---- Biden and Feinstein both remind me of a leather class I put on. We used the rawhide to make rattles with and they behave the same way.
When shaken they make noise. The biggest difference is that the rattles actually sound good!
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