Just checking in!

[tallguybry]

Hey guys/gals!

Just dropping by to say hello! Hello!

The move to NC went well. Work is going well also. I'm "running trains" already.

CRH will still be on hold for a month or two until I rebuild my bankroll. I want to get back to $1K so I can order a box and leave the other $500 for loose stuff!

I hope everyone is doing well!

H$H!!
TGB

 

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[Piledriver]

Aw, TGB,
Leave all that play'in around with trains
and get back to the real thing--Rolling !

Hope to see you back soon.

Keep on Rollin' !

 

[old digger]

Are you with the railroad (UP), Conductor or Engineer?

 

[Bigheed]

hey TGB glad to hear from you, been a while since you've been posting, wondered what had happened to you!

HH
Bigheed

 

[SilverForBrains]

Good luck! CRH is a lot of fun when you have little to work with, it's all about strategy and flipping it around fast!

 

[tallguybry]

Are you with the railroad (UP), Conductor or Engineer?

I am with a shortline here in NC. I am both a Conductor and a Locomotive Engineer.

 

[tallguybry]

hey TGB glad to hear from you, been a while since you've been posting, wondered what had happened to you!

HH
Bigheed

I didn't forget about you guys! But rest assured, I will resume CRH'ing soon! In the meantime, I will be lurking in the shadows armed with my patented "YAHTZEEEE!" for when the opportunity presents itself!

H$H!!
TGB

 

[TimZim]

Glad you your doing well!!

 

[namster]

Good to see ya back Bry. Heres a little interesting RR factoid:

Railroad tracks
The U.S. 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 designed the U.S. 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 had used for building wagons, which used that 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 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 (including England ) for their legions. Those 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. Therefore, the United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot. In other words, bureaucracies live forever.

So the next time you are handed a specification, procedure, or process, and wonder, 'What horse's ass came up with this?', you may be exactly right.

Imperial Roman army chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the rear ends of two war horses.

Now, the twist to the story:

When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, you will notice that 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 in Utah.

The engineers who designed the SRBs would have preferred to make them a bit larger, 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.
And you thought being a horse's ass wasn't important!

Now you know, horses' asses control almost everything...explains a whole lot of stuff, doesn't it?

 

[Xiao en]

Good to see you TGB glad things are going well for you. Hope you can get back to searching soon.