Why are railroad tracks 4 feet and 81/2 inches wide?

Question

Why are railroad tracks 4 feet and 81/2 inches wide?

Answer 1

That is the standard gauge--anything less is narrow gauge.

Answer 2

Because that's the width of two horses asses.

Answer 3

The Roman chariot answer is totally correct

and the width of roman war chariots was set because that is the width between the wheels that fit best behind two war horses, so it is a true statement that American Standard Guage is the width of two horses' asses.

Answer 4

Because it's the perfect distance for a man with a top hat and curly mustache to tie an innocent damsel down and have her chopped in just the right places.

Answer 5

it is however the distance between wheels a roman wagon

therefore the standard on rails

Answer 6

If they weren't the wheels of the train would not stay on the tracks.

Answer 7

Because before there were railroads in the U.S. there were tramways in England and it was English expeditionaries who first designed American railroads. Remember it was an Englishman who invented the first practical steam locomotive.

By the way 4 feet 81/2 inches was also the wheelbase of a Roman chariot.

http://www.rootsweb.com/~nerailrd/trivia...

Answer 8

Halsca has it. There was a story going around awhile back, about how the whole rail system evolved from the track of the Roman chariots. Since they were first, they produced the permanent ruts in roads. So any carriage maker was almost obliged to make any future carriages so that they traveled the same ruts, or it would make the ride very uneven and uncomfortable, so all carriage makers kept those dimensions in mind. Once the railroads got invented, what was available to use? Carriages. So, they spaced the rails to match the current vintage carriages, which still sported the dimensions of the Roman chariots.

  Even so, there have been other gauges of track, India still has a Broad gauge line, into Russia. England gave up it's Broad gauge early in the 1900's. Even America in the Northeast experimented with Broad gauge early on ( and actually, the North and the South during the Civil war had different gauges, so couldn't use each other's equipment without conversion ) Usually narrow gauge is for mountainous regions, where every INCH of track width is expensive to provide for. Or for mining and tunnels.

  But the most likely reason for 4 feet 8.5 inches is the old Roman Chariot / Carriage maker dimensions. Funny how something over 2,000 years ago can affect society today, huh?

Answer 9

Any more and you sacrifice economy. Any less and you sacrifice stability. 4 feet, 8 1/2 inches has been proven to be absolutely the perfect distance.

Answer 10

Because if they were 4'10" apart the wheels would fall between the rails.

Answer 11

Well. lets see what Snopes has to say about it.

http://www.snopes.com/history/american/g...

Answer 12

The first practical railway was 4 feet 8 inches wide, and that has spread.  The British originally were dominant in locomotive engineering so they got their gauge spread around the world early.  Very simple.

The half inch was added later when it became obvious that it's better to cone the wheels and set the tracks just a tiny bit wider.  Obviously they could have made all the axles a half inch narrower, but changing the tracks was the more economic decision.

A more interesting question is why that one railway was 4 feet 8 inches wide to begin with.