How Specs Live Forever

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 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 questions. The United State 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 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.

Ponderings collection 20

• Why is the word abbreviation so long?
• How come you press harder on a remote-control when you know the battery is dead?
• Have you ever imagined a world with no hypothetical situations?
• You know how most packages say "Open here". What is the protocol if the package says, "Open somewhere else"?
• Since Americans throw rice at weddings do orientals throw hamburgers?
• Why are they called buildings, when they're already finished? Shouldn't they be called builts?
• Why are they called apartments, when they're all stuck together?
• Why do people without out a watch look at their wrist when you ask them what time it is?
• Why do you ask someone without a watch what time it is?
• Why does sour cream have an expiration date?

11 Ponderings Collection

Ponderings Collection

1. If the black box flight recorder is never damaged during a plane crash, why isn't the whole airplane made out of the same stuff?
2. Why is there an expiration date on sour cream?
3. If most car accidents occur within five miles of home, why doesn't everyone just move 10 miles away?
4. If man evolved from monkeys and apes, why do we still have monkeys and apes?
5. I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman, "Where's the self-help section? She said if she told me, it would defeat the purpose.
6. If all those psychics know the winning lottery numbers, why are they all still working?
7. Why do we say something is out of whack? What is a whack?
8. Do infants enjoy infancy as much as adults enjoy adultery?
9. If a pig loses its voice, is it disgruntled?
10. Why do women wear evening gowns to nightclubs?
11. Shouldn't they be wearing night gowns?