California Surveyors Forums

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?
Well, because that's the way they built them in England, and English engineers designed the first US railroads.

This story has been around a long time, but is largely fiction. See https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/horses-pass/ for details.

Facts checked. Thanks Jim!

much of the Original Post was actually true.
4 feet, 8.5 inches is far from odd. you are using odd units of measure, not the original ;-)

Where is Carl Rodolf when we need him? Carl helped me on many of railroad problems in the past. RIP Carl!!

interesting
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard-gauge_railway
The distance between the inside edges of the rails is defined to be 1435 mm except in the United States, where it is still defined in Imperial and US customary units as approximately 4 ft ​8 1⁄2 in.
==
Snopes categorized this legend as "false", but commented that "it is perhaps more fairly labelled as 'True, but for trivial and unremarkable reasons'"

FWIW, as building the light rail in LA the rails were located to the nearest 0.001' both horiz and vertically. Yes, 0.001'. at 25ft intervals. Same with the stirrups on the bridges and where the ties were to be cemented into the road bed on streets the rails were suspended then as built, then the concrete was poured. All that for a train that might hit 40mph.

I once read it was the distance between Roman chariot wheels. Lol