Two Jokes.

["Captain Warwick J. Somerville" <marivcru@labyrinth.net.au>]

Three engineers and three accountants are travelling by train to a
conference. At the station, the three accountants each buy tickets 
and watch as the three engineers buy only a single ticket. 

"How are three people going to travel on only one ticket?" asks an
accountant.  "Watch and you'll see," answers an engineer. 

They all board the train. The accountants take their respective seats,
but all three engineers cram into a restroom and close the door behind
them. 

Shortly after the train has departed, the conductor comes around collecting 
tickets. He knocks on the restroom door and says, "Ticket, please." 

The door opens just a crack and a single arm emerges with a ticket in
hand. The conductor takes it and moves on. 

The accountants saw this and agreed it was quite a clever idea. So,
after the conference, the accountants decide to copy the engineers 
on the return trip to save some money (being clever with money, 
and all that). When they get to the station, they buy a single ticket 
for the return trip. To their astonishment, the engineers don't buy 
a ticket at all. 

"How are you going to travel without a ticket?" says one perplexed
accountant.  "Watch and you'll see," answers an engineer. 

When they board the train, the three accountants cram into a restroom,
and the three engineers cram into another one nearby. The train departs. 
Shortly afterward, one of the engineers leaves his restroom and walks 
over to the restroom where the accountants are hiding. He knocks on 
the door and says, "Ticket, please."
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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.