>>14402838I'd like to take a second to talk about German rail autism and that building in the background. While most national rails have systems in place to identify narrow points so that trains can be built to specific dimensions and loads don't end up overhanging too far and getting broken, the Germans took this a step further. It was effectively illegal to load a train with something wider than the narrowest rail choke point in ALL of Germany, even if the train would never even pass anywhere near that point in its entire journey. There were no provisions for exceptions. As a result, a unique problem arose. The Tiger series of tanks, specifically the Tiger II, were wider than this allowance and as a result they were technically illegal to move by train when fully constructed. Instead, railworkers had to remove the side armour and most of the wheels from the tanks before they were allowed to load them onto trains, which was time-consuming and laborious, and they would have to be reassembled when they reached the destination. This autistic restriction lead to tonnes of delays in moving the tanks up to the frontlines, and eventually some of the railworkers said "fuck it" and just started loading the tanks whole even though it was illegal.
