January 6 meeting at Highland Baptist Church Activity Center, 7:30pm. Program to be announced.
I am posting articles to the World Wide Web page as they are written. Many of them will be there before the newsletter gets in the mail. We have a lot of room on the Web for your long articles, books, encyclopedias of model railroadania, and pictures. Get them to your new newsletter editor, Jack Seay.
The modules at the Science Spectrum were taken down December 29th and 30th. Thanks to all who helped.
Dues are due. $12 individual. $18 family.
Slide SIG - Rock Island slides will be shown. Thursday, January 23, 7:00pm, at Patrick Prichett's house, 4702-16th St.
Next director's meeting will be Tuesday, January 21, 7:30 at Jan Kutch's house, 3611 Chicago (on a cul-de-sac).
Jan Kutch (president), Patrick Pritchett (vice president), Tony Horn (secretary), Bob Anconetani (librarian), Jack Seay (editor), Jim Baker, Jon Hayes, Dr. T. H. Holmes, and Ken Riediger as deadwood.
Should you build in G (1/24-1/28),O (1/48),S (1/64), HO (1/87), N (1/160), or Z (1/220) scale? That depends on many factors. Consider the following before spending your money. Write down the advantages and disadvantages of various scales for you.
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 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 question. The United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches derives from the original specification (Military Specification) for an Imperial Roman army war chariot. Military Specifications and Bureaucracies live forever!
So, the next time you are handed a specification and wonder what horse's a*s 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.
Received via E-mail Bob Anconetani.
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