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How bureaucracies live forever:The US Standard railroad gauge (distance between

the rails) is exactly 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 the

US railroads were built by English expatriates. Why did the English people 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 used for building wagons, which used that wheel

spacing. Okay! Why did the wagons use that odd 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 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 roads have been used ever

since. And the ruts? The initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear

of destroying their wagons, were first made by 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, 8.5 inches derives from the original

specification for an Imperial Roman army war chariot. Specs and bureaucracies

live forever. So, the next time you are handed a specification and wonder what

horse's rear end 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. Now the twist to the story.... 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 line to 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 determined

by the width of a horse's rear end!