That would be nice but actually I enjoy working on preserved railways, I have helped retube several locomotives in my time but getting a bit old for the really heavy stuff

Hi,

I was never into that too much, but did you ever look into how they chose the distance between the rails in a typical rail line?
Also, there are some interesting old rail lines still running in various countries. You would probably know more of them than i do. They are still a means of transportation. We have a line that runs through town and they recently just converted to double decker cars (two story high rail cars for transporting people around the state).

 

Hello people! I am RAJ,a graduate in Computer Science, an Android application programer, and i'm planning on a startup.I've been into software for so long and I'm in love with it. It is efficiently satisfying me all these years.

But it's in the recent times that,whenever I think of a new project, I was given a halt as my thoughts transcend the vicinity of software, entering the unfamiliar neighbourhood of Electronics.But I'm not a guy who cannot even spell Electronics.I know the basics(just the basics).In fact,I've recently created a circuit with a battery that can be charged to light up a group of different coloured leds each of which can be operated with a switch.(Believe me.I'm not lying)I did it for my aquaqrium but the shelf possessed it.

That's all folks. That is me. Now you know that I'm a guy who loves to make things by myself rather than buying it from a store. There are a few ideas in my mind,BUT I'M UNABLE TO PROGRESS.Of course its because of my lack of knowledge in electronics. So here I am to have some assistance from the EXPERTS.Hope I'm gonna have one heck of a time in AAC.
Just to mention: This is the first forum that I've ever participated in.
SO WHO IS WITH ME? LET US START WITH A FIST BUMP.

 

@elect-R@J It is also very helpful to show your country of origin as many electrical supply based questions asked are dependent on location in order to offer a suitable answer.
Also if requests for a supplier is asked for.
Good Luck.
Max.

 

Hi,

I was never into that too much, but did you ever look into how they chose the distance between the rails in a typical rail line?
Also, there are some interesting old rail lines still running in various countries. You would probably know more of them than i do. They are still a means of transportation. We have a line that runs through town and they recently just converted to double decker cars (two story high rail cars for transporting people around the state).

The width of the Space Shuttle rocket launcher was determined by the width of two horses' asses.

Four feet, eight and a half inches.

This is a folklore than has been circulating for a long time:

Does the statement, “We’ve always done it that
way” ring any bells… ?

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 English expatriates built the US Railroads.

Why did the English 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 have that particular
odd wheel spacing?

Well, if they tried to use any other spacing,
the wagon wheels would break on some of the old,
long distance roads in England, because that’s
the spacing of the wheel ruts.

So who built those old rutted roads?

Imperial Rome built the first long distance
roads in Europe (and England) for their legions. The
roads have been used ever since.

And the ruts in the roads?

Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts,
which everyone else had to match for fear of
destroying their wagon wheels.
Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome, they
were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing.

The United States standard railroad gauge of 4
feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original
specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot.
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 war chariots were made
just wide enough to accommodate the back ends of two
war horses. Now the twist to the story…

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 SRBs are
made by Thiokol at their factory at 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. 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. … and you thought
being a HORSE’S ASS wasn’t important!

The Truth:
There is no evidence that we could find that this is true.
In an article on www.railway.org by D. Gabe Gabriel says this tale has existed since shortly after World War II but that history does not support the claims of the story. The Roman ruts, according to Gabriel, were not for chariots but for narrow, hand-pulled carts. Although there are many places where the ruts are visible, Gabriel questions that they played a role in English railroad standards 1400 years after the last Roman legions. One of the claims of the eRumor is that the width of the ruts was affected by the need to make the chariot and it’s wheels the same width as the combined rears of the horses pulling them. Gabriel says there’s a statue by Franzoni in the Vatican museum that is regarded as the most accurate known depiction of a Roman chariot. The two horses are wider than the chariot and the chariot wheels behind them.

Where did the four-foot, eight-and-a-half-inch standard originate? Gabriel says it was from a Englishman named George Stephenson. Carts on rails had been used in mines in England for years, but the width of the rails varied from mine to mine since they didn’t share tracks. Stephenson was the one who started experimenting with putting a steam engine on the carts so there would be propulsion to pull them along. He had worked with several mines with differing gauges and simply chose to make the rails for his project 4-foot, eight inches wide. He later decided that adding another six inches made things easier. He was later consulted for constructing some rails along a roadway and by the time broader plans for railroads in Great Britain were proposed, there were already 1200 miles of his rails so the “Stephenson gauge” became the standard.

Interestingly, the 4-foot, eight-and-a-half inch width has not always been the standard in the U.S. According to the Encyclopedia of American Business History and Biography, at the beginning of the Civil War, there were more than 20 different gauges ranging from 3 to 6 feet, although the 4-foot, eight-and-a-half inch was the most widely used. During the war, any supplies transported by rail had to be transferred by hand whenever a car on one gauge encountered track of another gauge and more than 4,000 miles of new track was laid during the war to standardize the process. Later, Congress decreed that the 4-foot, eight-and-a-half inch standard would be used for transcontinental railway.

updated 5/30/02

copied from:
https://www.truthorfiction.com/railwidth/

 

Snopes also refute it and quote some of the same data.
http://www.snopes.com/history/american/gauge.asp
Max.

 

@elect-R@J It is also very helpful to show your country of origin as many electrical supply based questions asked are dependent on location in order to offer a suitable answer.
Also if requests for a supplier is asked for.
Good Luck.
Max.

Hello Max! Thanx for the suggestion. Pardon me but I dont know where to add my country name(I'm just new).By the way I'm from INDIA.

 

I sort of figured that by the name, you go to top right of the page and click on your forum ID.
Personal details> Location
Max.

 

Hello Max! Thanx for the suggestion. Pardon me but I dont know where to add my country name(I'm just new).By the way I'm from INDIA.

To choose the location field from your information.
https://forum.allaboutcircuits.com/members/elect-r-j.444366/

 

I was never into that too much, but did you ever look into how they chose the distance between the rails in a typical rail line?

The width of the Space Shuttle rocket launcher was determined by the width of two horses' asses.

Its a shame for the shuttle SRB's the USA did not follow the Irish at 5ft3" or better still Brunel's famous GWR that was originally laid at 7ft0-1/4" for smooth riding at high speed all the way from London to Bristol! in 1840
http://lionels.orpheusweb.co.uk/RailSteam/GWRBroadG/BGHist.html

 

Just a quicken to say thanks to people for helping me so far. thought at this time I would take a couple of seconds to introduce myself and share some thoughts (misguided, not fully thought out and somewhat not liked).
So I am a low level geek. I learn from others as opposed to being able to sit down and read a book, I need to converse on the ideas to understand them fully.
I put myself in the hands of Tesla with his hopes of making certain things available to all not to the few. As for over unity and hopes of free electricity I believe that we harness the wrong types of energy but hey I don't know that much.
I am trying to get a project idea of the ground but fail at the overall design, coding, hands on implementation......... but I will not be deterred. the idea is very much my own for a while yet until I get closer, but if someone reads the thoughts and questions I have then someone will figure it out.
I am weird on so many levels, but any knowledge I have I will be happy to share. any ideas I have I will be banned for, so will edit them to suit the needs of this forum and then post them.
looking forward to the help I get and hoping to help out where I can.
anyway til my next stupid question thanks guys and girls and talk laters

 

7ft0-1/4"

2.98 horses butts?
(2.13995 meters.)
Two and one seventh meters?
You have to wonder where engineers get some of this crap.

 

Aviator X, signing on.

I am an aspiring electrical engineer, hoping to make it my second career. My son has expressed interest in the field, so this has presented an opportunity to share in a mutual endeavor. I hope to make contributions to the community as my experience grows. I am looking forward to sharing ideas.

 

Aviator X, signing on.

I am an aspiring electrical engineer, hoping to make it my second career. My son has expressed interest in the field, so this has presented an opportunity to share in a mutual endeavor. I hope to make contributions to the community as my experience grows. I am looking forward to sharing ideas.

Welcome to AAC.
When you sharing more and then you will get some more back, good luck ...

 

That reminds me: This site works all over the planet. You will see several languages filtered through Google Translate and some spelling mistakes, typos, and bad grammar. Try to roll with the punches.

 

Hi everyone, nice to join you here!
I concentrate on renewables, audio, model and full size railways.

How this for full scale!
https://forum.allaboutcircuits.com/threads/vehicle-repair-manuals.89088/#post-645040
Post #11
Max.

 

As for over unity

About that subject, better you reread this Forum ToS.

 

Hello all,

This is my 1st post.
My name is Simon, actually dedicated to embedded systems in the rf world..

I hope to enjoy AAC community.
Regards,
S.

 

I am writer. I am here ton find helpful technical information.

 

I am smart, I am kind, I am important!

 

Good day everyone!

My name is Richard, I'm a web developer as profession. I found this place because I've gained an interest in 'Internet of Things' applications and recently started a project to control and monitor parts of my fish tank over the internet...

The first part of the project I'm working on is a 5 channel led controller able to control 24V led strips that are currently lighting my fishtank.

I currently have a working prototype controlled by a Raspberry Pi that connects to my server (through websockets) and registers a few procedures. Then, when I connect to my server with a browser running a simple web app, I'm able to dim the leds by calling one of those procedures to set the PWM duty cycle to a certain value.

I hope to get some feedback about my prototype as I'm fairly new to electric engineering. I'll start a topic for that as soon I'm back home and have access to my schematics.