The Improbable True Story of the Standard Rail Gauge
I am something of an grumpy, older guy, as one or two of you may know. I have also spent a lot of time reading and studying history and how we got to be where we are now. So it takes quite a bit of something to really surprise me. But my mind was completely blown the other day when I came across a post on a bit of history that was not known to me. To back-track a little, I was researching some stuff for a book that I have been working on and off for a while about the historical building of the transcontinental railroad, which met up here in Northern Utah, less then an hours drive from my house. I wanted to know the width of the railroad tracks of that time, (and thereafter), which turns out to be 4 feet, 8 and a half inches. Okay, that is a pretty odd measure, why not 4 and half feet or an even 5 feet or more? I put it out of my mind until the other day.
It turns out, that the first railroads in the U.S. were designed by English engineers and as you may guess, that is the width of English railroads. The English railroads were based on the width on wagon tramways and on regular wagons and the original jigs that were used to build them. So why did wagons have that odd width? Wagon ruts. If they were wider or shorter they would not wear very well. So who built the old rutted roads? The Romans, who build networks of roads from Italy all the way up through Europe and England for their legions. Okay, the roads the Romans build for their military and chariots, made the initial ruts that everyone followed thereafter. So why that odd measurement for their chariots? Because, (deep breath), that is the width of two horse’s rear ends that pulled those chariots. Our railroad system was based on more then 2,000 years of horse’s behinds.
And now for the real strange twist in the story. Not more then 15 miles from where the transcontinental railroad met at the Golden Spike National Monument, is the company Thiokol, (now Cordant Technologies), and the factory where the solid rocket boosters, (our most advanced flight system at the time), that helped lift the space shuttles into space for 135 flights is located. The rocket booster engineers wanted to make them larger for better liftoff capabilities, but guess what? Trains, which transported the booster parts had to go through several tunnels to get to the launch facilities and the trains were only as wide as two horse’s rear ends. So the boosters had to be smaller then they originally wanted and the horses won out. The moral is, you don’t have to be a horse’s behind to make history, but occasionally it helps.
(The standard rail gauge bar in the center of the photo from the Golden Spike National Monument museum. A space shuttle booster, (dummy) on display at the old Thiokol plant. I couldn’t get any horses for comparison.)
