The Equalizer
Sabine District Transportation Club
Member of Traffic Clubs International
Volume 09 Issue 07: July 2009 PO Box 20103, Beaumont, TX 77720
Please keep our troops and their families in your thoughts and prayers.
Out for the Summer! No meeting for August! Meetings will resume with a luncheon at the Cattle Company on September 8, 2009! Enjoy your vacation!
Enjoy!
Be Safe!
Scholarship Application Deadline August 1, 2009
As in the previous years, the club has available both dependent member scholarships & member scholarships.
Members (in good standing) that are planning on furthering their career & plan to attend college part-time are eligible for scholarships.
For dependent scholarships the student must be enrolled for 12 hours for Fall & Spring semesters. Student must have a parent/legal guardian that is a member (in good standing) of the Sabine District Transportation Club.
The scholarship monies are dispersed ½ for Fall semester & ½ for the Spring semester.
Scholarship applications can be obtained from the secretary, Sherry Eckerle at (409) 791-3259 or from any Board Member or Officer.
The annual fish & shrimp fry was held at Big Rich Courville’s on July 14, 2009. The crowd really enjoyed the fellowship and the great food!
The fund raiser brought a few folks from Houston our way. The relaxed atmosphere allowed the quite interaction with our members and their guests. A great time was had by all. Many thanks to the folks at Rich Courville’s for catering this event.
Clark Freight donated 4-Astro tickets and parking pass for a door prize. Congratulations to Orlando Ciramella (an avid Astro fan) of Port of Port Arthur, winner of the door prize.
We hope you recognize some of our great members & their guests in these photos of the event! We hope to see you in these pictures next year if you missed this event!
TCI raffle tickets on sale!
Transportation Clubs International has their First Annual Scholarship Raffle going on now with the drawing to be held on September 19, 2009 at the Annual Convention in Chattanooga, TN. Need not be present to win.
$2 each of 3 for $5
The prizes are:
Grand Prize – Laptop Computer or 32” LCD TV (Winner’s Choice)
First prize – Garmin NUVI GPS
Second prize – Nikon Coolpix 10 mp Digital Camera
3rd-9th prizes – VISA gift cards
Proceeds to go to TCI Educational Scholarships
We have a limited number of tickets left, so get yours soon!
Upcoming Events!
September 14, 2009- Guest Speaker at Cattle Company Luncheon
October 13, 2009 – Fall Golf Outing
November 10, 2009 – Guest Speaker at Cattle Company
December 8, 2009 – Christmas Party at Cattle Company
The Equalizer
You can reach the Equalizer from the web site:
from the server:
http://www.txsdtc.org/equalizer/july2009/
Or you can receive a copy in the mail.
Visit our sponsors on the web site!
TCI Annual Convention
Chattanooga, TN
September 17-19, 2009
C-Host: Chattanooga Transportation Club
& Northwest Georgia Transportation Club
Many great events are planned this year including a Golf Tournament and Scholarship Luau.
The cost of the convention is $350. You can register on line by clicking on the link from the TCI website or see your secretary for the convention brochure for more information.
Should you have any questions and would like to attend this conference, please contact Sherry Eckerle at (409) 791-3259.
Did you know! Editor: Sherry Eckerle
Transportation Trivia (from Northern Alberta Transportation Club)
In North American railways the distance between the rails is 4 feet, 8 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 North American railroads. Why did the English build them like that? Because the first railway 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 in England, 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 their wagons use that 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, 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 Roman roads have been used ever since. And the ruts? The wheels of Roman war chariots first made the original ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagons. 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 questions. The United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8 inches, derives from the original specification for an Imperial Roman army war chariot. Specifications and bureaucracies live forever. So, the next time you are handed a specification and wonder what horse's behind 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. There's an interesting extension of the story about railroad gauge and horses' behinds:
When we see a Space Shuttle sitting on the launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are the solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. Morton Thiokol in a factory in Utah makes the SRBs. The engineers who designed the SRBs might 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 from the factory runs through a tunnel in the mountains. The SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than a railroad track, and the railroad track is about as wide as two horses' behinds. So a major design feature of what is arguably the world’s most advanced transportation system was originally determined by the width of a horse's behind!
