LD wrote:
"Roger T." <rogertra at (no spam) highspeedplus.com> wrote in message
news:dYqdndkQA4SoVDjXnZ2dnUVZ_t2dnZ2d at (no spam) islandhosting.com...
Interesting: you castigate us (what you term the "USa") for military
excesses around the globe, yet you fawn over Rome ...

Roman Empire? Pah! At it's peak, the British Empire was the largest
ever Empire both in actual land area under control and as a percentage
of the known world area. Not politically correct to tout UK history,
both outside and inside the UK.

Romans were beginners.


They did conquer the English.

Nope, the Britons, who adopted/adapted Roman culture, and were in turn
conquered by the English.

They held more than 50% of the known world, Britain somewhere about
25-33%.

Not true.

The Brits even went with the Romans wheel spacing for railway gauge!

Not proven. Bit of a myth actually. That and the rear ends of two
horses.

"Wolf K" <wekirch at (no spam) sympatico.ca> wrote in message
news:4aa65c66$0$5921$9a6e19ea at (no spam) news.newshosting.com...
LD wrote:
"Roger T." <rogertra at (no spam) highspeedplus.com> wrote in message
news:dYqdndkQA4SoVDjXnZ2dnUVZ_t2dnZ2d at (no spam) islandhosting.com...
Interesting: you castigate us (what you term the "USa") for military
excesses around the globe, yet you fawn over Rome ...

Roman Empire? Pah! At it's peak, the British Empire was the largest
ever Empire both in actual land area under control and as a
percentage of the known world area. Not politically correct to tout
UK history, both outside and inside the UK.

Romans were beginners.


They did conquer the English.

Nope, the Britons, who adopted/adapted Roman culture, and were in turn
conquered by the English.

Buggers all look alike!

The Brits even went with the Romans wheel spacing for railway gauge!

Not proven. Bit of a myth actually. That and the rear ends of two
horses.


Of course it's not "proven" - how could one "prove" such a correlation?
The facts are:
Greg.P.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Greg.Procter" <procter at (no spam) ihug.co.nz
Newsgroups: rec.models.railroad
Sent: Wednesday, September 09, 2009 4:57 PM
Subject: Re: European freight yard operations vs US Operations

The Brits even went with the Romans wheel spacing for railway gauge!

Not proven. Bit of a myth actually. That and the rear ends of two
horses.


Of course it's not "proven" - how could one "prove" such a correlation?
The facts are:
Greg.P.

Beleive it or not.. Snopes seems to take your view on that too for some
parts of it..

http://www.snopes.com/history/american/gauge.asp

But as too the final point, there is no connection with that being THE
standard and the Romans. It was chance that THAT particular rail width
has
become the standard, a few changes in history and it could have been
different.

They held more than 50% of the known world, Britain somewhere about
25-33%.

Not true.

I tied together two separate facts in one sentence - which one don't you
accept?

They held more than 50% of the known world, Britain somewhere about
25-33%.

Not true.

I tied together two separate facts in one sentence - which one don't you
accept?

Both, no matter who much you try to disprove either.

They held more than 50% of the known world, Britain somewhere about
25-33%.

Not true.

The Brits even went with the Romans wheel spacing for railway gauge!

Not proven. Bit of a myth actually. That and the rear ends of two horses.

The Brits even went with the Romans wheel spacing for railway gauge!

Not proven. Bit of a myth actually. That and the rear ends of two
horses.



True. The spacing of the gaps in the Roman roads to let pass the wheels
of their carts is 143.5 cm. I measured that in Pompei.

Wim van Bemmel wrote:

The Brits even went with the Romans wheel spacing for railway gauge!

Not proven. Bit of a myth actually. That and the rear ends of two
horses.

True. The spacing of the gaps in the Roman roads to let pass the
wheels of their carts is 143.5 cm. I measured that in Pompei.

So why do you assume it was the same anywhere else?

There was an excellent article in Trains a few years ago debunking that
myth, and countless references on the internet. It is amazing that such
nonsense gets perpetuated in this modern world on such flimsy non-evidence.

Typical of Procter to promote it, of course. What does twibil think
about it?

No, but after reading what the proctologist most recently wrote, it
occurs to me that someone, somewhere, must already have researched this
matter and written about it (you know, those things called "books"? made
out of this stuff called "paper"? Yeah, I know, most young folks don't
know about them anymore).

I would be curious to know if it's true that the ruts in Roman roads
forced a certain amount of standardization of wheel spacing; I'm
skeptical, though, and certainly wouldn't rely on the ass-examiner as a
reliable source of information.

a_a_a wrote:
Wim van Bemmel wrote:

The Brits even went with the Romans wheel spacing for railway gauge!

Not proven. Bit of a myth actually. That and the rear ends of two
horses.

True. The spacing of the gaps in the Roman roads to let pass the
wheels of their carts is 143.5 cm. I measured that in Pompei.
So why do you assume it was the same anywhere else?
There was an excellent article in Trains a few years ago debunking
that myth, and countless references on the internet. It is amazing that
such nonsense gets perpetuated in this modern world on such flimsy
non-evidence.

I, for one, have doubts that the Roman chariots had any sort of
"standard" spacing for wheels. Standardization of manufacturing really
didn't come about until the mid-1800s. I suspect Roman wheel spacing
varied by a fair amount, especially considering that they had chariots
in 1-man, 2-man and 3-man sizes.

On Sep 10, 2:34 pm, a_a_a <a... at (no spam) a.a.net> wrote:

Typical of Procter to promote it, of course. What does twibil think
about it?

Pete thinks that if anyone really cared to find out they'd go suss out
the remaining Roman roads (and there are quite a few of them: the
Romans didn't fool arond when it came to solid engineering) and survey
them for tire ruts.

If most of said ruts were pretty much the same distance apart, and if
that distance were close to 4' - 8 1/2", then I'd think the story -and
the ruts- might hold some water. And if not; not.

Too simple?