The US 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 built the US 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 used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.

Okay! 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 (and England) for their legions. The 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.

The United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot. And bureaucracies live forever.

So the next time you are handed a spec and told we have always done it that way and wonder what horse's ass came up with that, you may be exactly right, because the Imperial Roman war chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the back ends of two war horses.

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. 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 ??

In any event, I never felt unimportant, just a horse's ass.
 

Now as to we've always done it that way....

Take theatre lenses...

The barrel diameter is 70.6mm. Now wait the metric system wasn't in vogue back then so it is rational to think that it wouldn't fall on an even millimeter.

So what is it in english units? 2-25/32! it isn't even a nice number for that! Who came up with that size? Call it 3" or 2.75" But 2.78125" How did they "agree" on that size?

At least when the 50s hit and new big-boy lenses were needed for the extra light we settled on a nice rosey 4" number.

Steve

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"Old projectionists never die, they just changeover!"
 

I took a DMM along on my last trip to Europe
just for the fun of seeing it say 50 Hz
 

BTW does the concept of precision in measurements and calculations get taught in science classes these days? Cracks me up when calculations are carried out to nine decimal places even though the original measurements feeding those calculations are only reliable to two or three (e.g. the 70mm AR arguments in Widescreen Review a few years ago).

Regards,

Paul

 

Steve

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"Old projectionists never die, they just changeover!"
 

Of course we in the UK lowered our nominal 240V to 230 to meet the continental Europeans.

However in the UK the allowable range is 230V -5%/+10% and continental Europe uses 230V -10%/+5% but soon we again will "harmonise" to 230V +/- 10% giving a range of 207 - 253 V

 

As for railways... I say tear 'em up and tarmac them over! I've often thought that they were a nineteenth-century solution to a twenty-first century problem: now I hear that they are a Roman solution to a twenty-first century problem! Promoting railways as the way to solve our transport needs is like promoting Victorian hygiene practices to improve public health. Just some of the reasons why they're a totally obsolete technology:

• The trains go no faster than they did 100 years ago. OK, it's technically possible to build ones that do (e.g. the French TGV), but the sheer cost of this is out of all proportion to the economic and social benefits the trains bring.
  
• Their brakes are so shitty that trains have to travel several miles apart. The brakes on cars are so good that (assuming the driver is competent) they can safely cruise at 70mph with only 150 yards between each vehicle. This means that the level of land utilisation on land used for railways is hopelessly uneconomic.
  
• Trains are getting more dangerous. The proportion of total rail journeys which end in the passenger being killed or injured is on the increase. Again, there are technical solutions which would bring this rate down, but at a huge cost. According to an article I read recently, the foolproof train protection system which stops drivers from shooting the lights would cost around £1,000 per passenger at current levels.
  
• Trains are inflexible. You have to travel when someone tells you, not when it is convenient for you to go.
  
• Trains are f***ing expensive. Unless you are prepared to book a long time in advance and go at a highly inconvenient time, it costs roughly twice what it would to go by car, taking into account all motoring costs. And if more than one person is travelling, just forget it! If you consider that trains are highly subsidised and that motoring is highly taxed, the true differential is even greater.
  
• Trains are even more f***ing unreliable. Enough said.
  
• Travelling in them is about the unpleasant experience possible, (apart, possibly, from being executed in an underpowered electric chair). You usually have to share a carriage with antisocial yobs, screaming babies and aggressive dogs.
  

The main problem with private transportation is environmental damage. Even there, we've come a long way. Today's engines push out about 20% of the Co2 emissions that their equivalents did two decades ago. BMW have recently produced a prototype hydrogen-powered car. What we should be doing is pouring money into private vehicles powered by renewable energy, not down the drain and onto a railway track. They would also make us less dependant on Middle East oil, and we could then leave psychos like Saddam and Bin Liner to kill each other without bothering us. In today's society, we need the flexibility of private cars to support the economy and social cohesion - there's no going back. We can't continue much longer with the internal combustion engine in its current form, but railways should have been got rid of years ago.
 

I do agree, passenger trains suck!

Freight trains are cool. If you think about it, what other mode of transportation for cargo is more efficient than a freight train? About three or four V-16 Diesel Locomotives to drag a mile of freight cars loaded to the gills down a set of tracks at 79 miles per hour sounds like a good deal to me.....

Trains are a 24 hour medium...for cargo and it is easy to keep a fresh crew operating them unlike poor truckers that have to make as many A-B deliveries to pay off CAT for their outragous parts.

As to renewable energy...you are gonna have to change what we know about the physical properties of those to make them work. Virtually all of the earth friendly vehicles are trading one ill for another and are in fact, not so earth friendly. LNG is an intriquing one but keeping it safe is another thing. Solar isn't efficient enough and ANYTHING that uses a battery is a feel-good pro-environment item...batteries are not terribly efficient and always involve metals. Anything that involves plugging the car in is horrible since you either have coal polution or neuclear waste to contend with.

Believe me, I think we should try and try to come up with something other than oil based engines (also horribly inefficient) but thus far, everything else isn't good either.

Steve

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"Old projectionists never die, they just changeover!"
 

In the United States up through the late 1950's, rail travel was the most common source of transportation. It was in the post-war era that G.M. and Standard Oil went throughout the U.S. and purchased/dismantled most major mass transit systems so that they could build highways and sell cars...what a mess this has become!

Little by little major citys across the U.S. are recognizing just how much light rail has rectified traffic problems and systems are now being restored.

I am a licensed Streetcar Motorman/Conductor and Dispatcher as I was a volunteer with Old Pueblo Trolley in Tucson, AZ.

As far as passenger service being efficient...just look at what the Japenese have done with the famous Bullet Train...and there has never been an accident.

The reason for the likes of Amtrack not being successful...$$ and politics!...good ole government!

Cargo travel by rail is the best solution...but safety is a must and is sometimes compromised by corporate greed!

I did use rail travel in England and was quite impressed. Actually, I was easily and effeciently able to do much traveling through using the bus service and rail travel together...many of the public bus systems in the U.S. are a freakin joke...in Tucson your are screwed w/o a car...as Suntran is...well....
 

Longer passenger train service probably doesn't make economic sense, though, since airline travel is almost always faster and cheaper and automobile transportation is often cheaper and usually more convenient, but that doesn't invalidate the concept of passenger rail service altogether.

Freight service is a completely different story, of course, and apparently does make sense for longer routes.
 

One of the flatbed cars had a fuselage of what might have been a Boeing 727. (I guess it fit through the tunnels...it didn't look like a beer can that someone stepped on.. )

I could have pictured it on a truck with a million wheels going through weight stations on the Interstate Freeways.

My experience is that some routes are more reliable than others. You might have got lucky on your visit, or have travelled on the trains which run at peak business hours and which the railway companies try their hardest to make sure run on time. But that still leaves the cost. Example - a return ticket from York to London (182 miles) which permits you to go on a train that arrives in time for a morning meeting costs £130 ($200 approx). If you take into account petrol, depreciation on the car, insurance, maintenance costs per mile and a day's parking in central London, I'd guess that the same trip by car costs around £70. If four people are travelling that's £520 for the train compared to £70 by road. If you allow for the 80% taxes on road fuel alone, then the real actual cost of that road journey is nearer £20, and if you allow for the subsidies which the government pumps into the rail industry, then the cost of the train is probably into four figures.

Granted, railways might be a more viable option for freight. Though in order to avoid skewing the sums, then either shippers would have to pay what it actually costs to transport goods that way rather than a vastly subsidised figure, or I would need to hear some convincing arguments why the economic and environmental benefits of doing it that way justifies the subsidy. I am convinced that for passenger travel, they do not.

BTW, the assertion by railway enthusiasts that the huge subsidies in European countries are used to make the up-front cost of travelling easier is, IMHO, a myth. Their trains are faster and more reliable than ours, but no cheaper. For just over two years I made regular trips from Paris to Bordeaux (about 3-4 times a year). An advance-booked off peak ticket was 1,275 francs (£105 approx). That's about the same distance and price as London to Edinburgh. The low-cost airlines will now get you there straight from London for a tiny fraction of that.

The Width of Railroad Tracks is based on a History that Extends Back to Roman Chariots-Fiction!

Summary of the eRumor
This story is a "We've always done it that way" tale. It says that the standard distance between railroad rails in the U.S. is four-feet, eight-and-a-half inches. Why? Because that's what it was in England. Why? Because that's the gauge the tramways used before the railroads. Why? Because the tramways were built using the same tools as wagon-builders and that's how wide the wagon wheels were spaced. Why? Because the old roads in England had ruts that the wheels needed to accommodate. Why? Because the ruts were made by Imperial Roman chariots.

The Truth
There is no evidence that we could find that this is true. In an article on www.railway.org by D. Gabe Gabriel says this tale has existed since shortly after World War II but that history does not support the claims of the story. The Roman ruts, according to Gabriel, were not for chariots but for narrow, hand-pulled carts. Although there are many places where the ruts are visible, Gabriel questions that they played a role in English railroad standards 1400 years after the last Roman legions. One of the claims of the eRumor is that the width of the ruts was affected by the need to make the chariot and it's wheels the same width as the combined rears of the horses pulling them. Gabriel says there's a statue by Franzoni in the Vatican museum that is regarded as the most accurate known depiction of a Roman chariot. The two horses are wider than the chariot and the chariot wheels behind them.

Where did the four-foot, eight-and-a-half-inch standard originate? Gabriel says it was from a Englishman named George Stephenson. Carts on rails had been used in mines in England for years, but the width of the rails varied from mine to mine since they didn't share tracks. Stephenson was the one who started experimenting with putting a steam engine on the carts so there would be propulsion to pull them along. He had worked with several mines with differing gauges and simply chose to make the rails for his project 4-foot, eight inches wide. He later decided that adding another six inches made things easier. He was later consulted for constructing some rails along a roadway and by the time broader plans for railroads in Great Britain were proposed, there were already 1200 miles of his rails so the "Stephenson gauge" became the standard.

Interestingly, the 4-foot, eight-and-a-half inch width has not always been the standard in the U.S. According to the Encyclopedia of American Business History and Biography, at the beginning of the Civil War, there were more than 20 different gauges ranging from 3 to 6 feet, although the 4-foot, eight-and-a-half inch was the most widely used. During the war, any supplies transported by rail had to be transferred by hand whenever a car on one gauge encountered track of another gauge and more than 4,000 miles of new track was laid during the war to standardize the process. Later, Congress decreed that the 4-foot, eight-and-a-half inch standard would be used for transcontinental railway.

Paul, you wrote:

<<The train looked like it was at least a mile long, maybe even longer. It had 4 locomotives running point, and 3 at the end pushing.>>

Now, I can comprehend, "I'll pull--you push." But just how can more than one engine pull a train without one going too slow, acting as a drag, or one pushing too hard and wearing out or destroying itself?
I've interlocked projectors with selsyn motors, and I can understand
a couple of synchronizing methods, but how do you synchronize locomotives a mile apart? Is there some sort of differential hookup like that which allows a vehicle's wheels to travel at different speeds making a turn? Or some kind of slip-clutch? Does each engine carry an engineer, and are they all in communication? Does the same method work for steam and diesel engines?
Gerard
 

While the front locomotives are hooked together via MU hook-ups...pushers generally operate off of a radio control system linked to the lead unit.

On locomotives, the vast majority of the operating is done with the brakes.... Throttle is engaged with air brakes on...and the brakes are gently let off...

"Whipping the Throttle" is a MAJOR offense and WILL result in derailments and broken couplers....

An engineer must be very familiar with his/her area of operation. Knowing when to increase throttle prior to an up grade so the train does not stall on grade (takes into account how many locomotives and h.p, length and weight of train.....and when to lay off throttle prior to summit so that wight of train does not push engines and train out of control on decent....
 

The most impressive sight I have ever seen was in the mid 60's. I was traveling though Eastern Oregon, and I stopped for a cup of coffee in some small hick town. While I was sitting there, the coffee in the cup started to get ripples in it, and then the ground started to shake. I asked the waitress, "Are we having an earthquake?" She said, "No, just a freight train passing through."

I thought, "I have to see this" - and went outside. In the distance there was indeed a freight train. It had TWENTY TWO locomotives pulling, and SIX more locomotives in the middle.

Every one of those locomotives were blowing heavy smoke out the stacks (including the locomotives in the middle) while it was pulling and shoving that train up the steep mountain grade.

Just a freight train? Wow! I wish I could have gotten a picture of that....

Gerard, the axle shafts are straight through. No differentials. But you will notice the wheels are beveled. As it goes around a curve, one wheel rides higher on the bevel and the opposite wheel on the other side rides on a lower part of the bevel. That's how they go around a curve without slippage. Some of the old logging locomotives had "Blind drivers"...that is, some of the wheels did not have flanges on them. That enabled the locomotive to negotiate sharper curves without derailing.

There is one speed locomotive engineers avoid as much as possible....that is about 18 MPH. They want to get through that speed as quickly as possible. At about 18 MPH, a phenomenon of "harmonic rocking" can develope. That oscillation can get strong enough to derail the train. I am sure Will can give a better idea on how bad that oscillation can be.

Just goes to show you can't believe everything you hear, no matter who says it.
 

It is important to note that many of the Amtrak accidents that have happened over the years have not been Amtrak's fault at all. Amtrak actually owns very little right of way (rail lines). Most of their trackage is operated under lease from frieght railroads and is share by frieght and passenger trains. The collisions that have happened over the years have been the fault of the frieght railroad traffic controlers for the most part, and the derailments have been caused by track that was maintained to handle slower moving frieght trains and not higher speed passenger trains. Amtrak has gotten a pretty unfair rap over the years

I geuss I really can't comment too much on long distance rail, not having much experience with it myself. I did take a train from Liepzig to Berlin once. The ride took quite a while, but only because we bought the cheapest ticket available (and thus the train would stop at every station instead of continuing on straight through). It was very comfortable however and rather enjoyable. I've also ridden on the Berlin and Munich subway systems. The S-Bahn in Berlin circa 1997 was quite an experience. You could definately tell when you were on tracks that had been controlled by the East Germans and when you were on tracks that had been controled by the West Germans by the way the train would shimy from side to side on the East German tracks. The Munich subway was very modern and convenient however.

Lastly, you mention the enormous subsidies required to keep passenger service afloat. This may be true, but the same holds true for cars. The United States spends tens of billions of dollars every year maintaining and rebuilding our massive road network. In the northern states it is a constant struggle due to the beating the roads take over the winter. Road work is a never ending battle, there is always a stretch of highway to rebuild.
 

Point taken about the cost of maintaining a road network; but in this country, the amount of taxpayers' money spent on road maintenance and building new ones is roughly 15% of the revenue taken in motoring-related taxes (principally fuel duty and road tax). Once you balance out the overall figures, the taxpayer provides a proportion of 'match funding' to the price of a rail ticket, whilst for every mile you drive, you are paying the government far more than you get back in investment in the road network. In fact investment in roads as a proportion of GDP is actually being reduced, whereas we should be spending money on the research needed to deliver environmentally sustainable private transport. The answer, in the short term, is to travel as little as possible, but in this day and age very few people have that option.

The situation on accidents is pretty much the same here. Different companies involved in delivering different components of the service inevitably blame each other for causing them. That doesn't remove the fact that in general terms, British railways are getting more dangerous.
 

I have heard the trouble was it had too many wheels, or it was a design flaw in one set of bogies.

Maybe Will, Steve, or Dustin can tell us more about the details.
 

Now that you've got me intrigued I think I'll do a bit of research and see how the actuall numbers work out.