“Beauty excites the sensitive soul to tears.” ~Edgar Allan Poe

Left: ‘Anatomy of the Bones of the Human Body,’ artist unknown, German, late 15th c. Staatliche Sammlung München

Wheels of Fortune

 

‘Past is Prologue’ is an aphorism that may thoughtlessly roll off the tongue. But, except in the broadest historical sense of the term, we don’t give much thought to its implications in daily life. I ran across an amusing story in an unlikely place (an antique automobile club newsletter) that fascinated me, in light of this old adage. With another time-worn phrase in mind—‘necessity being the mother of invention’—I thought it would be fun to share this functional design story with readers: xxxxxx

“We’ve always done it that way.”

The U.S. standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That’s an exceedingly odd number. How did that measurement come about? Only by working our way back through the history of civilization can we find the answer…

It’s because that’s the way they built them in England in the 19th century, and English expatriates designed the U.S. railway system, many of  which traced the Conestoga wagon trails westward. But, why did the English builds them like that? Because the first English rail lines (1830s) 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?

Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools 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 wheel would break on some of the old, long-distance roads that crisscrossed England, because of the spacing on those wheel ruts.

So, who built those old rutted roads?

The occupying armies of the Roman Empire build those roads all over Europe and England for their roving legions. Those same roads have been used ever since.

And, those ruts in the road?

Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else, over time, had to use for fear of destroying their wagon wheels. And since all chariots were made in Imperial Rom, they were standardized in terms of wheel spacing.

So, United States standard railroad gauge is 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot. Some bureaucracies can live forever! This strange specification did not arise from thin air, however. The Roman chariot had to be made just wide enough to accommodate the back ends of two war horses.

Now consider more recent history.

When a large Space Shuttle rocket would sit on its launch pad, ready for lift-off, there are usually 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 a company, Thiokol, at their factory in Utah. The engineers who designed the SRB would have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but they had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site in Florida. That trip necessitated passing through a tunnel in the Rocky Mountains. The SRBs had to fit through the tunnel. The tunnel is only slightly wider than the railroad track, which, as you now know, is only about as wide as two Roman chariot horses’s behinds.

So, a major NASA rocket design feature—arguably the world’s most advanced transportation system—was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a horse’s ‘petute.’

So, next time someone calls you a horse’s a**, remember how vital your role in world history has been!

Thanks for reading ARTES Magazine.

Best Autumn and Back-to-Ghoul Wishes,

Richard J. Friswell, Publisher & Managing Editor