Here's a thread from the railroad.net message board regarding different gauges of the world http://railroad.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3172
There's quite a bit of useful and interesting information in that thread (of course, mixed in with the usual rantings, ravings, and bs of your average message board thead )
tomikawaTT wrote: "Ridiculous?" The last listing, 3 meter gauge, "Hitler's project, never built." I guess "Der Fuhrer" wanted something to support even bigger railroad guns! Chuck
"Ridiculous?" The last listing, 3 meter gauge, "Hitler's project, never built." I guess "Der Fuhrer" wanted something to support even bigger railroad guns!
Chuck
I think that was to be called the Breitspurban; if you want to see some interesting conceptual imagery of this, Robert Barnes has painted several such scenes
http://www.robinbarnes.net/broad1.jpg
http://www.robinbarnes.net/broad2.jpg
http://www.robinbarnes.net/broad3.jpg
http://www.robinbarnes.net/
A few years back I Googled "Railroad Gauge Width," and came up with a seven page listing running from 191mm (7 1/2 inches) to ridiculous. Standard (1435mm, 56 1/2 inches) gauge appears halfway down page 6, followed by a full page plus of wider-gauge listings. Six were from the US, three current (as of 2002) and three obsolete.
Ken,
Here's a link to bethleham steel high line shot. Just to give you an idea just what a high line car is. I couldn't find any photos of the track work for the six foot gauge, but it is six foot none the less.
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=149123
Patrick
Fear an Ignorant Man more than a Lion- Turkish proverb
Modeling an ficticious HO scale intergrated Scrap Yard & Steel Mill Melt Shop.
Southland Industrial Railway or S.I.R for short. Enterchanging with Norfolk Southern.
Bethleham steel in PA used 6 foot gauge on their high line for coke and ore shuttle cars. The tracks ran from one side of the furnaces to the other, abou 4000' of track.
Beaufort,SC
DRSC
I haven't been there for years but the GWR Society at Didcot had a length of broadgauge track complete with carriages, wagons... and a real steam engine... all replicas from drawings. Very impressive. Next time I'm down that way I'll take a look to see if it's still there.
Most models layouts include some dual gauge... it makes pointwork (switches) interesting.
Eriediamond wrote:A thread about the differences between "scale" and "gauge" provokes this thought. I model the ERIE and back in the early days (real early-before 1880), it and some other railroads were built with "broad gauge" track (6 ft between the rails). Just curious if any one has modeled this? Ken
When it comes to broad gauge, the Erie was a piker. The Great Western Railway in Britain was originally built to a gauge of 7 ft 1/4 in. The Brits even have a Broad Gauge Society dedicated to accurately modeling the GWR in broad gauge days. http://www.broadgauge.org.uk/exhibfield/exhibfield.html (there's a link to a map of Newbury at the site).
Newbury, Berkshire, UK is located a few miles south of the M4 between Heathrow and Swindon (which, incidentally, has a fine railway museum http://tinyurl.com/zm238 ). From Heathrow, you'd want to head west on the M4 exiting at the A34 south turning left onto the A339 into Newbury.
Andre .