[1593] in Humor
HUMOR CLASSIC: MilSpecs
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (abennett@MIT.EDU)
Wed Sep 11 10:28:41 1996
From: <abennett@MIT.EDU>
To: humor@MIT.EDU
Date: Wed, 11 Sep 1996 10:16:47 EDT
Date: Tue, 10 Sep 1996 23:39:09 -0800
From: connie@interserve.com (Connie Kleinjans)
From: rocky@hal.com (Rochelle Grober)
>>>>> Forwarded message from myke@gofast.hal.com (myke)
How MilSpecs Live Forever
The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is
4 foot 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.
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 as they used for building wagons,
which used that wheel spacing.
Okay! Why did the wagons use that wheel spacing? Well, if they tried
to use any other spacing the wagons would break on some of the old, long
distance roads, because that's the spacing of the 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
roads have been used ever since. And the ruts? The initial ruts, which
everyone else had to match for fear of breaking their wagons, were first
made by Roman war chariots. Since the chariots were made by or for
Imperial Rome they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing.
Thus, we have the answer to the original questions. The United States
standard railroad gauge of 4' 8.5" derives from the original military
specification (MilSpec) for an Imperial Roman army war chariot. MilSpecs
(and bureaucracies) live forever!
