Miles and chains???

Neptune50006 · Post by **Neptune50006** » Mon Apr 21, 2003 1:55 pm

Railway distances are often shown in miles and chains. But what exactly is a chain in this respect? It's one of those things that I've often come across but never known what it means.

alanhowat · Post by **alanhowat** » Mon Apr 21, 2003 2:11 pm

http://www.gwydir.demon.co.uk/jo/units/length.htm
If you use the above link you will go where all is explained.

snowcrashandy · Post by **snowcrashandy** » Mon Apr 21, 2003 2:11 pm

A chain's 22 yards, 80 chains to the mile, strange system of measurement, not sure why it was chosen though.

Andy

PaulH2 · Post by **PaulH2** » Mon Apr 21, 2003 2:40 pm

I seem to remember from some history lesson in my dim and distant past (or it may have been a field trip to the Black Country Museam) that a chain (22 yards as mentioned) was the average length of chain made by one man in a single day when the chain links were made manually.

Don't ask me to justify that, its just a vague memory (but seems reasonable).

Why it was chosen as a unit of measure for railways I don't know, but I would assume just because it is a larger unit than yards (and they didn't need that level of precision).

Paul

bjdick · Post by **bjdick** » Mon Apr 21, 2003 3:05 pm

It was chosen as a chain,because it was comprised of 100 "links",each of which is 7.92 inches.These units can be further subdivided into Barleycorns,for really precise measurement.

See http://users.chariot.net.au/~youngs/linear.htm

tinsley · Post by **tinsley** » Mon Apr 21, 2003 3:31 pm

Now you understand why the rest of the world..well, most of it , is using the metric sytem!!!!

saddletank · Post by **saddletank** » Mon Apr 21, 2003 4:14 pm

The canals in Britain are 'correctly' measured in miles and furlongs Strange but true.

mikesimpson · Post by **mikesimpson** » Mon Apr 21, 2003 10:35 pm

And for those of you in England who still remember the game of Cricket, the chain is the length of the cricket pitch.

BobLatimer · Post by **BobLatimer** » Mon Apr 21, 2003 10:44 pm

Low blow Mike!!

southcoasttrains · Post by **southcoasttrains** » Tue Apr 22, 2003 12:17 am

mikesimpson wrote:And for those of you in England who still remember the game of Cricket, the chain is the length of the cricket pitch.

Don't you mean the bit where the batsmen run between each wicket, Cricket pitches are likely to change in size.

As in football pitches, Arsenal is smaller than any other Premiership club.

BobLatimer · Post by **BobLatimer** » Tue Apr 22, 2003 3:08 am

I always thought the bit the batsmen run on was called the wicket - not to be confused with the set of three lengths of dowelling stuck in the ground with a couple of short pieces ballanced on top - also called the wicket - not to be confused with having one's wicket "taken" even if the ball didn't actually hit the wicket.

Just goes to show how complicated the English language is - not to mention the different variations on the original as spoken in different parts of the world.

Neptune50006 · Post by **Neptune50006** » Tue Apr 22, 2003 9:22 am

alanhowat wrote:http://www.gwydir.demon.co.uk/jo/units/length.htm
If you use the above link you will go where all is explained.

Wow, thanks for that. It's almost like something out of a comedy sketch. It's amazing that anything ever got built properly years ago.

isambardkingdombrunel · Tue Apr 22, 2003 10:41 am

And for those of you in England who still remember the game of Cricket, the chain is the length of the cricket pitch

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Don't any of you slime balls mention rugby.

IKB.

Fodda · Post by **Fodda** » Tue Apr 22, 2003 1:28 pm

Errr... IKB... Aren't the Welsh cricketing sides subsumed by the ECCB? Doesn't that mean that Welsh players actually play for England?

And Wales can be very proud of itself in the rugby this year (for a change

) after keeping the mighty Ireland to a near defeat. Well done that lot.