Where did current North American track spacing originate - fact or fiction

[binder001]

As mentioned, it was the invention of the stirrup that allowed a man to remain stable on the horse and use a weapon.  That changed a horse and armed rider into a "weapon system"

[wjstix]

I remember that at Pompeii they found that the Romans had built elevated sidewalks. At road crossings, there were openings wide enough to let a wagon's wheels pass through. I don't remember how wide they were spaced, but if someone could track it down it might shed light on the subject....

[dehusman]

The chariot was like a Jeep with a machine gun on it.  Think "Rat Patrol".  One guy would drive and the other was an archer who would fire arrows.  The chariot would drive in a long oval parallel to the line of enemy troops with the archer firing arrows at the  masses formation of troops.  The chariot could carry hundreds of arrows and its defense was speed.

Ancient troops were three types, infantry, calvary and projectile (archers/slings).  In the rock-paper-scissors scheme of things, infantry beat calvary, calvary beat projectile, projectile beat infantry.  That's why when David went out to fight Goliath (infantry), he discarded armor and a sword (infantry) and used a sling (projectile).

["JaBear"]

NittanyLion

Seems like "sit on horse" would come way before "have horse pull an elaborate machine with multiple guys on board" but nope.

If my not so ancient memory of ancient history lessons is correct, apparently the wheel was easier to invent than the stirrup.

Cheers, the Bear.

[7j43k]

cedarwoodron

Many things take their dimensions from real life- the 9 inch riser on a stair...

 

 

Most of the rises I've run into are 7".  However, runs of 9" are not uncommon.

 

 

Ed

[NittanyLion]

tomikawaTT

Dave just reminded me of a historical fact.  The Persian Emperor Darius was the last big user of chariots, back when Rome was a country village.  Alexander the Great came up with the pike pocket, which rendered the chariot useless as a weapon.  In Rome, chariots were the equivalent of Formula Ferraris, racing vehicles virtually useless for ordinary transportation.

Caesar discovered that the pike pocket tactic also worked against elephants.

Chuck (Modleing Central Japan in September, 1964 - 3' 6" and 2' 6" gauges)

 

One of the greatest quirks in history to me is that the chariot was a combat system a thousand years before anyone managed to get a guy to sit on top of a horse with a weapon.  Seems like "sit on horse" would come way before "have horse pull an elaborate machine with multiple guys on board" but nope.

European terrain never really lent itself to charioteers anyhow.  The mobility of the armed equestrian, on the other hand,...

[hon30critter]

Sounds like the article was a bunch of hooey (can I use that word here?).

Anyhow, it seems to have stirred some interesting conversation.

Dave

[tomikawaTT]

Dave just reminded me of a historical fact.  The Persian Emperor Darius was the last big user of chariots, back when Rome was a country village.  Alexander the Great came up with the pike pocket, which rendered the chariot useless as a weapon.  In Rome, chariots were the equivalent of Formula Ferraris, racing vehicles virtually useless for ordinary transportation.

Caesar discovered that the pike pocket tactic also worked against elephants.

Chuck (Modleing Central Japan in September, 1964 - 3' 6" and 2' 6" gauges)

[davidmurray]

I like to read both history and historical fiction.  Never have I heard of the Roman Army using chariots.  Roman bigshots used chariots, especially for parades.

Subject tribes provided troops to aid the legions as part of their tribute. These troops used the system they had found useful locally, which is where they served.

As mentioned, flagstone surfaced roads would never have had narrow ruts in them,  Said roads were designed for infantry to move rapidly, but in many places more than a bowshot from the road was dense woods, not good for massed chariot charges.  Also paved roads are hard on horses hooves, especially unshod ones.

Just my nickels worth, as we no longer use pennies.

Dave

[NittanyLion]

I can't imagine fitting into any tunnel was a factor in the SRB design.  If there had been some tunnel between Thiokol's site in Utah and Florida/California, they'd have just transported them a different way or selected a new site.  Its more likely they were moved by rail because it just happened that the canisters they shipped the segments on fit on railcars.  You'd have probably seen a few C-5 Galaxies flying booster segments around or a contractor selected that had barge access.

[tomikawaTT]

The most believable story I've ever encountered was that Robert Stephenson was the engineer at a mine that used 4 foot 8 inch gauge cart tracks.  When he engineered the Stockton and Darlington (and designed the Rocket) he eased the gauge 1/2 inch as a concession to the longer wheelbases of the passenger 'wagons.'

Isambard K. Brunel built the Great Western Railway to 7 foot 1/4 inch gauge - and often made disparaging comments about, "Stephenson's mine cart gauge."

As for sizing tunnels to suit the loads on the railroad, the U. S. Government Railroad (Boulder City, NV to Hoover Dam, 1933-1963) was standard gauge - but the five tunnels were sized to pass segments of 56 foot diameter penstock pipes.  They look almost wide enough for double track, and would be no challenge to double hi-cube stacks or any Schnabel car load I've ever seen in photos.

Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)

[richg1998]

One link from a Google search for, railway track gauge history

http://www.snopes.com/history/american/gauge.asp

Do it yourself for more info.

Rich

[dehusman]

I wonder if the part about the booster rockets is true?

Sorta.  Yes the rocket motors had to fit through the tunnels (and under bridges and by signal masts, fuel risers, switch stands and station platforms.)  And yes the gauge sorta determines the clearances because it nominally determines the width of the car.  However you will find that among roads with standard guage there is a wide difference in clearances.   A nominal clearance engine in the US will be to wide for many lines in Europe.

[cedarwoodron]

Many things take their dimensions from real life- the 9 inch riser on a stair, the height of a desk or table, the width of a common chair seat- practical experience was a driver of these "standardized" things, going back centuries or even millenia. No suprise that railroads- being "roads"- should have such ancestral origins as well. And people think that "human factors engineering and design" is something new and a "modern" approach?

As for the boosters on the old space shuttle, it probably isn't the first time things have been built with an eye towards how they would be transported- think of mobile homes!

Cedarwoodron

[hon30critter]

NittanyLion

I added a caveat.

I wonder if the part about the booster rockets is true?

Dave

[NittanyLion]

It is an oft repeated story, but one with a somewhat minor flaw: Roman roads were only eight feet wide.  Their carts could not be five feet wide and have space to pass on the roads.  By the way, the roads were paved, so no ruts in the first place.

However, the original horse drawn mine carts had outside flanged wheels.  A five foot axle gives you a cart wide enough for a horse to pull it.  If you build your wheels a few inches wide on the tread, you end up with a gauge of 4'6" to 4'8"...

[hon30critter]

Sorry Tom - problem has been fixed but I lost the pictures.

Dave

[tstage]

Dave,

FYI: The right side of your post runs off the viewable text box.  Since this is the only post I've seen this happen on, I don't think it's my computer.

Tom

[Edit: That's MUCH better, Dave.  ]

[hon30critter]

 Some of you may have seen this before but I thought it would be fun for others to see.

EDIT - It may not be entirely true.

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 saw 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?

 

Dave