Before the current railways ‘broad gauge’ (distance between the rails) of 5’6″ came about, there was the ‘standard gauge’ of railroads of 4 feet, 8.5 inches.

Now isn’t that an exceedingly odd number?Why was that gauge used? Well, because that’s the way they built them in England, and English engineers designed the first railroads globally.

Why did the English build them like that? Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the wagon tramways, and that’s the gauge they used.

So, why did ‘they’ use that gauge then? Because the people who built the tramways used the same axles, jigs and tools that they had used for building wagons, which used that same wheel spacing.

Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing? Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break more often on some of the old, long distance roads in England. You see, that’s the spacing of the wheel ruts which were already formed on many English roads.

So who created ruts on those old roads? Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (including in England) for their legions. Those roads have been used ever since. And the ruts on many of those roads were formed by the Roman chariots, which everyone else had to match or run the risk of destroying their wagon wheels. Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing.

Therefore for decades and decades the standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches was actually derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot.

I’m sure at some point atleast one of the more curious engineers building these railroads must have looked at the specifications and thought – “What horse’s ass came up with this gauge?”

And herein lies the hilarious story. Because Imperial Roman chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the rear ends of two horses – so 2 horses’ asses.

So the answer to the curious engineer’s question is – not one horse’s ass but 2 horses’ asses. 😅

Now, here’s how all this links to space travel…

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 first ever SRBs were 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, and 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.

Now imagine what all else is determined by an ancient horse’s ass… 🤔😁

Bureaucracies live forever. Remember this when you decide specifications for almost anything or start following any specifications simply handed down to you. 😉😅

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