“The Sandy River and Rangeley Lakes Railroad and Predecessors” series is an excellent reference for this sort of info. The books contain lots of tables with very detailed technical material gleaned from original documents such as records from the Portland Company held in the Maine State Museum in Augusta.
I looked up wheel sizes for some of the rolling stock and it seems that the most common wheel diameter was 20 inches. The wheels are often referred to as “Boston Wheels”. Most flatcars and boxcars (and even the log bunks) were 20”. The SRR Baggage/RPO #7 & #8 also used 20” but the #6 Baggage/RPO used 22” wheels. A few cars originally from the Billerica & Bedford used 18” wheels.
I agree with the previous post that suggested that the frame & bolster configurations contributed more ot the “lowness” than the wheel diameters.
(Bachmann sells underframes & trucks to lower their On30 cars as mentioned in MRR magazine a few months ago, FWIW.)
Also, I'm no expert on this stuff, I just happened to have one of the books handy.
John C
ACYTrain & Trooper, P. O. Box 137, Phillips, ME 04966. Portland Locomotive Works was a major supplier of parts and supplies. I don't know the current status of either of these companies.
Train and Trooper is gone. Their Sn2 locomotive stock was bought by Crusader Rail Services possibly other stuff as well.
Paul
Have you considered emailing the Maine narrow gauge museums from your Google search?
I have been to the one in Portland but understand moving and been to the one near Boothbay Hawbah.
Rich
If you ever fall over in public, pick yourself up and say “sorry it’s been a while since I inhabited a body.” And just walk away.
With the OP's pic as a point of reference, the differing heights of equipment are more due to things other than the difference in wheel diameter. The On30 boxcar could be appreciably lowered with some changes in the bolster and underframe design. Get it hunkered down and there would be a much closer comparison.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
If the Maine two-footers ran 20 inch wheels, they were a good bit bigger than those run by at least one 30 inch gauge railway. The Kiso Forest Railway rolled everything from logs to school kids on wheels 305mm in diameter - one foot, for the metrically challenged.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - including two 30-inch gauge feeders)
I haven't pursued anything in the 2 ft. sphere in a long tine, so my info may be way out of date. My go-to place for 2-foot stuff was always Train & Trooper, P. O. Box 137, Phillips, ME 04966. Portland Locomotive Works was a major supplier of parts and supplies. I don't know the current status of either of these companies.
As Ed suggested, 20" diameter wheels were typical, and this is shown in several car drawings that appear in Two Feet To The Lakes -- The Bridgton & Saco River Railroad, by Robert C. Jones, Pacific Fast Mail, Edmonds, WA, 1993. Various other drawings of 2 ft. equipment of B&SR and other Maine 2-footers appear in issues of Narrow Gauge & Short Line Gazette, among other publcations.
Those trucks have been available in On2 and probably HOn2 (and the "2-1/2" gauges), but I don't know about cutrrent availability. The B&SR and most or all of the other Maine 2-footers used the Eames vacuum brake system. One truck was free-rolling, and the other had brake shoes.
Caboose 101 in Ed's drawing was B&SR's only caboose. The roof patch is where the cuploa was permanently removed by a low-hanging wire on the car's maiden trip. The car became part of the Edaville collection and still exists in Maine.
This is fascinating stuff! You jogged my memory.
Tom
All in the search terms, I guess. I found a plan for a Bridgton and Saco River passenger car:
Scaling from the plans, I get 20" wheels with a truck wheelbase of 48".
You might also find something here:
http://www.maine2footquarterly.com/books.htm
Note in particular that they offer a two-foot plan book.
Ed
i have been looking high and low for information about the trucks used on maine two footers. More specifically about the wheels, the diameter and width respectively. So far my googlefoo has been failing me. What I have found is that they used smaller wheelssets than say a 30 inch gauge railroad. If anyone knows a good source of information on these lines I would grearly appreciate it.
Lost in the snow