The Way of All Bureaucracies!

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 may the bureaucracies live forever.

So the next time you are handed a spec and told we have always done it that way and wonder what horse's ass came up with that, 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 r ockets 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 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 was not important??

Havoc!

Understatement No. 2: I got drenched yesterday, and life in Mumbai has almost come to a standstill.

I'm back in office today...on coming in, I saw only a few people in the office, and they were those who had stayed back yesterday! They never went home! As about the others, they haven't come, as the government has declared a 2-day holiday...about which I came to know on coming here. Even today morning was as exciting as yesterday...first I waited at the bus stop for half an hour...then got a lift on a Mumbai Police van. He dropped me half the way till Worli Police Statioin...then I got another lift from a very sweet middle-aged couple in their Zen. So after all this, I'm here in office...even the canteen's closed...gotta check if I can manage to get some food somehow.

My employer's arranged for a company T-shirt for us...so I'll be changing my clothes now...

Till then check this out...

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1183348.cms

MUMBAI: It was a day of disconnect on every front: no trains, jammed cellphones, and as a finishing touch, no power. Mumbai trudges through a day like this every monsoon but it's never been quite so bad. With large swathes of the suburbs being plunged into darkness because of enforced power cuts (as a cautionary measure against short circuits and electrocution), Mumbaikars were left groping in the dark.

On Tuesday, the city received the heaviest rainfall within a 12-hour span in the last 31 years. The weather bureau recorded 668 mm in Santa Cruz from 8.30 am to 8.30 pm. "Rainfall of this volume was last recorded on July 5, 1974 when Santa Cruz received 375.2 mm rainfall in 24 hours," said Thakur Prasad, director of the regional meteorological centre at Colaba.

With the weather bureau issuing a warning of heavy rain accompanied by gusty winds for the next 48 hours, the city and the state have been put on high alert. Evidence of the sheer force and volume of the water could be seen across the city with compound walls collapsing and vehicles afloat.

It was clear there was trouble in store when the trains slowed to a halt in the afternoon with reports of tracks being submerged under more than eight inches of water at some stretches. The worst hit was Thane district. Close to 10,000 people were shifted from Badlapur, Ambernath, Ulhasnagar, Bhiwandi, Mira-Bhayander, Vartak Nagar, and the Colour-Chem slums to higher grou-nd. In Badlapur where the Ulhas river had flooded, two deputy collectors were deployed to tackle the crisis. By 3.00 pm, downtown offices had closed and commuters swarmed on to the streets, desperately hoping to catch the last train home. BEST pressed an additional 425 buses into service but with the roads backed up with nose-to-bum traffic, this was of little help, although at least these passengers managed to stay dry. Outside CST and Churchgate, taxis were pounced on and fought over with queries of Panvel?, Borivli?, Chembur?, which would have normally been met with alacrity, but even the cabbies knew that their black-and-yellow warhorses wouldn't make it. The final straw was when suburbs north of Mahim were plunged into darkness with Reliance Energy and BEST cutting off power in the early evening. South Mumbai was unaffected. Those on the roads had to flounder through knee-deep water, those at home couldn't turn to the television for news of the flood situation outside. In other parts of the state at least 150 people are feared dead in the worst floods and landslides in 16 years in the Konkan region on Tuesday. The casualty figure could shoot up with hundreds of people trapped in their villages.

Director-general of police P S Pasricha, who conducted an aerial survey of the flood-hit areas, said, "Several villages were under a vast sheet of water. I could not see roads in many places." Property worth several crores was damaged. Transport, power and telecommunication networks simply collapsed resulting in untold hardship to lakhs of people. Rescue and relief operations could not be carried out in several areas because of the breakdown of transport services, government officials said. Thousands of people have been rendered homeless. At least 100 people were feared to have been killed in their sleep at Jui village in Mahad taluka of Raigad district when 20-odd houses were razed to the ground by huge boulders that hurtled down following a landslide, district superintendent of police Rajkumar Vhatkar said. Rescue operations at the village are still to begin as the village was cut off from the rest of the state, he said. Thirty-four people were killed in a landslide at Kondiwate. Three bodies have been removed from the debris, while rescue operations were on to trace other victims believed to be crushed under boulders, Vhatkar said.

Torrential Rains!

An understatement - Heavy rains in Mumbai today. It's just 4:00 PM, and it's already dark outside! Last heard that all train lines are down (I do not know as yet, as I'm still in the office). Could consider myself lucky, as I only have to go around 4 km. Will leave in sometime...if I wait more I might get stuck. The expressway is witnessing heavy waterfalls!!! The water that usually just trickles down from the adjoining hills is pouring down on the E-way. Such a romantic setting, and here I am...sitting in the office...writing a blog!

Dil Ki Dhadkan

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