NB width.

[TheBiscuits]

10 minutes ago, bizzard said:

4ft 8.1/2''

Say friend, did you know that the US Standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8 1/2 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. 

I see, but why did the English build them like that? 

Because the first railway lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used. 

Well, why did they use that gauge in England? 

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 their wagons use that odd wheel spacing? 

Because, if they tried to use any other spacing the wagon wheels 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 Roman roads have been used ever since. 

And the ruts? 

The original ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagons, were first made by the wheels of 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 question. The United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8 1/2 inches derives from the original specification for an Imperial Roman army war chariot. 

And the motto of the story is 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. 

So, just what does this have to do with the exploration of space? 

Well, there's an interesting extension of the story about railroad gauge and horses' behinds. When we see a Space Shuttle sitting on the launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are the solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at a factory in Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs might 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 from the factory runs through a tunnel in the mountains. The SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than a railroad track, and the railroad track is about as wide as two horses' behinds. 

So a major design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was originally determined by the width of a horse's ass. 

http://www.astrodigital.org/space/stshorse.html

[MtB]

11 minutes ago, bizzard said:

4ft 8.1/2''

 

A brief google reveals a surprising lack of consensus about UK railway gauge.

[MtB]

2 minutes ago, TheBiscuits said:

The original ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagons, were first made by the wheels of 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 question. The United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8 1/2 inches derives from the original specification for an Imperial Roman army war chariot. 

 

I don't buy that. 

The width of a rut made by millions of passages by chariots would not be so accurately 4' 8 1/2" that wheels say 4' 8" or 4' 9" would be destroyed. I bet the ruts were more like 12" or 18" wide each.

If there were ruts at all. 

 

[bizzard]

George Stephenson at first used the horse drawn wagon ways gauge  around Stockton and Darlington for his railway and used 4ft 8'' at first and then eased it to 4ft 8.1/2'' which became the standard gauge for the UK but not Ireland. Stevenson won the battle of the gauges, against Brunels 7ft gauge sometime around the 1860's and so 4ft 8.1/2'' became the standard and still is of course.

Edited April 17, 2018 by bizzard

[bizzard]

River Stort locks are roughly 13ft 3'' wide and range from about 80 to 85ft long.

[MtB]

5 minutes ago, bizzard said:

George Stevenson at first used the horse drawn wagon ways gauge  around Stockton and Darlington for his railway and used 4ft 8'' at first and then eased it to 4ft 8.1/2'' which became the standard gauge for the UK but not Ireland. Stevenson won the battle of the gauges, against Brunels 7ft gauge sometime around the 1860's and so 4ft 8.1/2'' became the standard and still is of course.

 

But WHY did he ease it 1/2"? 

Nothing to do with them Roman chariots I bet.

[bizzard]

1 minute ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

But WHY did he ease it 1/2"? 

Nothing to do with them Roman chariots I bet.

I don't know. All I can think of was that his engines and wagons were 4ft 8'' between the wheel flanges and he found that they bound on curves and probably de railed so he added a 1/2'' to the track gauge to give some play. Don't forget he was a pioneer of railwaying and still experimenting at the time. Track was wrought iron and wonky too and didn't last long. The horse drawn wagonways were originally just iron plates lade down so the wagons ran along easier than along a muddy track. They called it ''the iron road'' later ''Permanent way''.   Railway track workers are still called platelayers.

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

 why would you build something with fractions like 4’ 8 1/2 “ unless it's equivalent to another equal measurement?  And 4’ 8 1/2 is equivalent to 5 ancient roman feet. So, as far fetched as the chariot thing sounds there might be something in it  ( or not )

. Just saying. 

 

Edited April 18, 2018 by Goliath
?

[Peter X]

5 hours ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

I have wondered just how much port James Brindley and the other civil engineers involved in the Trent and Mersey had drunk when they decided that 7' was the ideal width for a boat on their new canal. I would hazard a guess that the fateful meeting took place in a pub.

Jen

 

4 hours ago, john6767 said:

I am sure I saw somewhere that the meeting that decided on 70ft x 7ft was in Lichfield, but don’t know if it was in a pub.

According to this:

http://www.engineering-timelines.com/scripts/engineeringItem.asp?id=790

a meeting at which the decision was taken to build the T&M did indeed take place in a pub, but it was the Leopard Inn at Burslem, Stoke in 1765. Not a surprising location as Josiah Wedgwood was behind the project. But of course the decision about the lock and tunnel widths may have been later, especially if those involved were looking for another excuse to meet up and have a pint. Maybe in a cupboard somewhere in an old pub in Lichfield there's a wonky sketch of a lock on the back of a beermat.

4 hours ago, system 4-50 said:

"What do you mean, 7 feet wide?  I clearly told you to build it 7 metres wide!"

1765 was a few decades before the metre was invented.

[Peter X]

There was a later meeting, apparently the width was set four years after that meeting in Stoke! I found an IWA article:

https://www.waterways.org.uk/blog/james_brindley__300

which states "At a meeting of canal company proprietors in 1769 the size of 74’6” feet long by 7 feet wide was agreed for the locks on the Grand Trunk" (that's what the T&M was then called), but sadly does not name the venue.

[furnessvale]

8 hours ago, Goliath said:

Until someone comes up with a better theory. I’m going with yours. 

There’s lots of reasons why canals would be narrow, such as technology,expense and the water has to be got from somewhere etc but why 7’ specifically? I’ll go with your theory. 

 

Next question is why the width of a train is the width it is? 

Two sevens equal fourteen.  Therefore, when leaving the new fangled canal to venture on to the older river system, or even earlier canals, two narrowboats could share a lock thus avoiding unnecessary water loss.

This has always been my thought about the matter and I have never considered any other answer.

George

[magpie patrick]

Numerology and biblical measures: it was actually 5 cubits, which approximates to the length of the forearm. Wide beams started appearing with the introduction of the Euro-cubit or metric forearm, which is rather longer and based on a hypothetical standard derived from the ghost resident in French canal tunnels 

[Athy]

7 hours ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

A brief google reveals a surprising lack of consensus about UK railway gauge.

You mean, the ones who are wrong don't agree with the ones who are right? 4'8 1/2" is the standard gauge for railway sin Britain (and America, France, Germany, Italy etc.), but not Ireland (5'3") or Spain and Portugal (5'5"). Just for confusion, Spain's new high-speed lines are built to a gauge of 4'8 1/2".

 

Just a thought: it makes sense that, as mentioned above, U.S. railways use the standard gauge because they were first planned by British engineers. But why, then, do Indian railways, which would most certainly have been British-planned, use 5'6"?

Edited April 18, 2018 by Athy

[furnessvale]

23 minutes ago, Athy said:

Just a thought: it makes sense that, as mentioned above, U.S. railways use the standard gauge because they were first planned by British engineers. But why, then, do Indian railways, which would most certainly have been British-planned, use 5'6"?

Apparently, the Governor General of India in 1849 was a big fan of broad gauge and insisted on its use.

George

[David Mack]

8 hours ago, bizzard said:

 

8 hours ago, bizzard said:

4ft 8.1/2''

1435 mm.

 

Edited April 18, 2018 by David Mack

[furnessvale]

Just now, David Mack said:

1435 mm.

 

1435 mm.

 

Except for the time it was 1432mm (now reverted to 1435)

George

[David Mack]

4 minutes ago, furnessvale said:

Except for the time it was 1432mm (now reverted to 1435)

George

Yes, I noted nobody had come up with 4 ft 8 3/8 in.

[Athy]

7 minutes ago, furnessvale said:

Apparently, the Governor General of India in 1849 was a big fan of broad gauge and insisted on its use.

George

[alan_fincher]

7 hours ago, bizzard said:

George Stephenson at first used the horse drawn wagon ways gauge  around Stockton and Darlington for his railway and used 4ft 8'' at first and then eased it to 4ft 8.1/2'' which became the standard gauge for the UK but not Ireland. Stevenson won the battle of the gauges, against Brunels 7ft gauge sometime around the 1860's and so 4ft 8.1/2'' became the standard and still is of course.

Everybody quotes Brunel's broad gauge as 7 feet, as if it is somehow a nice round number unlike 4 ft 8.5".

However the gauge was actually 7 feet and a quarter of an inch.

[alan_fincher]

8 hours ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

A brief google reveals a surprising lack of consensus about UK railway gauge.

If that's true, I can think of no better reason why Google should always be considered a potentially dodgy way of gleaning information.

I suppose the figure is so etched in my brain that it has never occurred to me many people would not actually know.

But then I've been a seasoned railway buff for most of my life.

Once we have worked out why 4' 8.5" was used for standard gauge, the next challenge is to work out why the vast majority of Welsh narrow gage lines used anywhere between 1' 10.75" and 1' 11.75", rather than rounding up to a much more obvious 2 feet. (And yes, I do know one or two were actually built as 2' 3" or even 2' 6", but most used the smaller gauges).

[Athy]

16 minutes ago, alan_fincher said:

Everybody quotes Brunel's broad gauge as 7 feet, as if it is somehow a nice round number unlike 4 ft 8.5".

However the gauge was actually 7 feet and a quarter of an inch.

Yes it was - again, one wonders why.

Regarding the Welsh railways, I was told years ago that the Festiniog (of which I was a member for years and on which I worked for a time) was built to the equivalent of 60cm (which was very common on overseas minor railways), which turned out at about 1'11 1/2". However I am not sure if this holds water, as the Fester opened in (from memory) 1836, and I am not sue if any mainland European narrow-gauge railways had yet been built by that date.

Certainly, during the time of my association with the line, a loco arrived which had worked on the 60cm gauge military lines in WW1, and which fitted the Festiniog's gauge.

[bizzard]

35 minutes ago, alan_fincher said:

Everybody quotes Brunel's broad gauge as 7 feet, as if it is somehow a nice round number unlike 4 ft 8.5".

However the gauge was actually 7 feet and a quarter of an inch.

And on the GW the extra width clearance required for 7' gauge single and double track is still evident, through bridges, cuttings and tunnels.

[Tim Lewis]

11 hours ago, sueb said:

The locks on the Basingstoke canal are 13'6"

It is the River Stort where the locks are 13' 3"

 

[bizzard]

10 minutes ago, Tim Lewis said:

It is the River Stort where the locks are 13' 3"

 

Yes, Stort. Twice in the past I've been called out to yank two narrow boats apart with a Tirfor winch  which jammed together trying to share a lock.

[MtB]

7 minutes ago, bizzard said:

Yes, Stort. Twice in the past I've been called out to yank two narrow boats apart with a Tirfor winch  which jammed together trying to share a lock.

 

Either they were unusually narrow narrow boats or the 13' 3" locks are actually a bit wider than 13' 3"!

(Or they wouldn't have got in to jam in the first place...)