Railroads, two horses behinds, and the Space Shuttle

gafinfan · Jul 13, 2009

Just what do they have in common with eachother and Imperal Rome?

http://www.trains.com/trn/default.aspx?c=a&id=234

http://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbth...087/Rail_Roads_and_Horses_Behinds#Post3151087

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.
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Bureaucracies live forever.
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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.
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Such is the way of the world. This thought from Gen. GS Patton comes to mind. "If everyone is thinking alike then no one is thinking."

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Railroads, two horses behinds, and the Space Shuttle

gafinfan gunner Club Member

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