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... Marketing Customer Service Planning Finance/Accounting Risk Management Human Resources Selling Legal and E&O Technology Life/Financial Services Glossaries Management Resources & Links Categories Popular Recent All Back The Influence Of A Horse's Derriere 4/30/2013 12:00:00 AM by CompleteMarkets Editor , Pegi Flahault This content has not been rated yet. Don't rock the boat. We've always done it that way! ' If it isn't broken, don't fix it. Do these statements ring any bells? Here's an example of how we tend to lock ourselves into old ways of thinking. The U.S. standard railroad gauge (the distance between the rails) is 4 feet 8.5 inches — an exceedingly odd number. How did the railroad builders determine that gauge? That's the way they built them in England, and English expatriates built the first U.S. railroads. Why did the English build them like that? The first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that was the gauge they used. Why did they use that gauge? The people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used the same 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 was 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. Some of the ...

...lt them in England, and English expatriates built the first U.S. railroads. Wh...