Okay now, I'm going to appear really dumb here:dont-know: You might want to just kick me out of this thread:shame:.... Well here goes. Why do they have narrow gauge..I mean the real thing. Smaller ties save money? Smaller cars for smaller people? Okay, I'm being silly...but I really don't know. baffled:
Narrower track can use a tighter radius. Less dirt, rock, and material to remove/modify for track laying, just that much easier in mountain areas. Also they can get away with lighter locos and cars, and go around sharper corners. Take a ride on the D&SNG in Durango sometime, and you'll see what I mean about sharp corners. I'm no expert, but I think narrow gauge was mostly for the logging and mining industries, or other special applications where they don't need regular sized equipment.
Here is a 1876 book explaining narrow gauge: http://books.google.com/books?id=nJUpAAAAYAAJ&dq=narrow%20gauge&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q&f=true It was the "dot-com" of the nineteenth century. Harold
Harold posted what may be regarded as a manifesto of the narrow gauge movement. After the Civil War, many communities (especially those bypassed by the broad and standard gauge roads, or developing afterwards) wanted to beat the high initial costs of railroad construction. The movement, led to a degree by Robert Fairlie (yes, the Fairlie locomotive), declared that railroads were heavily over-engineered and that building narrow gauge would be much cheaper, more efficient, and possibly eliminate SG railroads in the future. In practice, there was minimal real savings...fully offset by operational challenges in a land were 56.5" gauge was becoming the standard and interchange was becoming a prominent feature of railroad operations. The vast majority of the savings came from under engineered railroad infrastructure and under-built rolling stock. When the narrow gauge trunk line failed in the early 1880s, the movement went belly up. Most were regauged or even abandoned. At its peak in 1889, the D&RG had 1635 miles of 3' gauge track. The total was less than half that when it became the D&RGW in 1921 and around 500 miles in the post-war railfan era. Despite what many people think, narrow gauge does NOT allow trains to negotiate tighter curves or steeper grades. Rather, these features were a component of the under-engineering that occurred during the NG movement (the railroads paid a steep price in maintenance and operations). Narrow gauge was at its best on marginally profitable operations...places were the extra expense of a 20-30% wider RoW could not be justified...or where a NG was already in place and traffic wasn't heavy enough to justify the expense of conversion. Many of the best pieces of NG were converted to SG long before the railfan era...such as the D&RG mainline and the South Pacific Coast, while many poor pieces of NG were converted but always suffered from their under-engineered origins (the Nickel Plate's Cloverleaf, the N&W's west end, the south end of the DT&I, the southern most end of the SPC, etc). Post-NG era construction was usually in relatively remote place: the Montana Southern, the White Pass & Yukon, and the Oahu Railway. The White Pass and Oahu Railway are both very intriguing because of the extent to which they were modernized. The Oahu Railway had mainline railroad infrastructure (double track, automatic signals) while the WP&Y had its container cars and mainline diesels. Once the Oahu Railway set 3' gauge as the Oahu standard in 1889, just about every industrial railroad on the island was built to match this gauge. Michael
I must disagree. You had narrow gauge lines with much passenger traffic. Here in Germany you had narrow gauge lines which were commuter lines. Later they became street car lines. Wolfgang
Actually I think we agree. My meaning was narrow gauge had or has a fit where SG might be over-engineered.
Here in Cincinnati, we had 5 narrow gauge railroads: -The Cincinnati & Eastern -The College Hill RR -The Cincinnati & Westwood -The Cincinnati, Georgetown, & Portsmouth -The Cincinnati Northern (this was double tracked part way) all were common carriers, but two were mostly commuter. There were hundreds of narrow gauge common carrier railroads (mining, lumber, and such were industrial lines, and not as well documented). The best know industrial lines were the West Side Lumber Co and the Quincy & Torch Lake. I can only recall 6 narrow gauge common carriers which used geared locomotives: shays, heislers, climaxes. In most of these cases, they were short lived. On the contrary, many industrial operations used geared locomotives (but not all). The famed Q&TL used 2-6-0s and 2-8-0s. The last surviving 3' gauge operations...the Common Carrier WP&Y and the Industial operation at Plaster City. Industrial operations essentially connected raw materials with the same company's factory/warehouse, while common carriers connected different companies with towns and other roads...open to the public while industrial operations were closed to the public (shipping only their own freight and passengers). Narrow gauge failed as a direct competitor to SG because it was usually more expensive. Which is the cheaper way to move, using a radio flyer wagon or a U-haul? 9 times out of 10, the U-Haul because of the economies of scale...which is to say nothing as to the break of bulk at the break of gauge. It was (and is) far cheaper to move 6000 tons of freight on SG rails than NG rails. Michael
Michael, could you explain this sentence please? It does not make sense to me. For example, I can run my N scale on a 9" radius, but not an O scale train. I don't see how that can't scale up to the 1:1 world.
Sure. Flip your freight car over and turn the trucks. What stops them? The trucks/wheels run into something else. Take a steam locomotive and flip it over, what limits its ability to turn? The pilot hitting something (frequently the cylinder block) or the length of the rigid wheelbase (the drivers' ability to negotiate curves). For this reason, a B-man On30 mogul pulling Grandt Line's C&S cars with On3 wheels can negotiate much tighter curves than a regauged (On3) B-man mogul pulling Grandt Line's C&S cars with On30 wheels. The Maine 2 footers required very broad curves because of the forneys...they couldn't handle tight curves. Despite having a much longer wheelbase, an AMC berkshire (NKP 765, PM 1225) can handle nearly as tight of a curve as a D&RGW K-36 (280'vs 240'). The real evil with curves is that they dramatically increase the drag on a train. Similarly, tight curves require speed restrictions. Is it clear now? Michael
No. In your example, 240' is clearly less than 280'. Are you saying you could overlay SG track onto the DSNG (leaving grades out of it), and run a modern train up it? No way.
The 2-8-4s have an 18'10" rigid wheelbase, if you take into account the lateral motion device, it is closer to 12'7" (I don't know if it makes this much of a difference, but it can't make more). The K-36s have an 11' rigid wheelbase. That is a ratio of their effective rigid wbs (12'7"/11) is 1.14 or more. The ratio of their rated curves (280/240) is 1.17. A very high correlation between the rigid wheelbase and the minimum curve radius. Why? While the track gauges are quite different, the tolerances (lateral play between the flanges and rails) aren't that different. The K-36s are 100t locomotives which fit on 65' turntables. The AMC berks were 400t locomotives which required 90' turntables, yet the K-36s weren't that much more nimble when it came to curves...because it is the effective rigid wheel base, not the gauge of the track which determines such things. Take a block of wood that is just as wide as the flanges of an On3 wheelset and see how tight of an On3 curve you can run it through. Now do the same with O scale. You'll get about the same result. That's why HO models have tires which are 2x the width of the prototype...to increase the tolerances to allow for broader curves. This is also why Proto87 requires broader curves than HO. Michael
Most of the tight-radius advantage one sees on narrow gauge is derived from the generally shorter wheelbase nature of the rolling stock and motive power, if I am not mistaken. If the gauge is narrower but the rotational space under the car is not proportionately tighter, allowing a greater degree of rotational movement by the trucks, you'll get a bit of advantage there, too.
