I know in the modern era Yukon RR and the Newfoundland RR used shipping containers but having warehouses that tranfers trainloads of freight that could take days to unload seems like a bit much plus the damage that such freight endures.
Perhaps this link from an obscure web forum may help in answering your questions...Edit. And of course, that link to a Model Railroader thead on this topic just cries and runs away when I try to make it clickable. Yay.Plain link text: http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/13/t/153250.aspx
Spoiler alert - consensus was platforms between tracks of the two gauges, and lots of manhandling...
chutton01 Perhaps this link from an obscure web forum may help in answering your questions...Edit. And of course, that link to a Model Railroader thead on this topic just cries and runs away when I try to make it clickable. Yay.Plain link text: http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/13/t/153250.aspx Spoiler alert - consensus was platforms between tracks of the two gauges, and lots of manhandling...
Heated up the link provided by chuton01 (Model Railroader article).
The following link is to a TRAINS article "Narrow Gauge/Standard Gauge Switchovers" from June 9,2005: Linked @http://cs.trains.com/trn/f/111/t/38653.aspx
And here is an article from the following linked site: "Florida Southern N.G. years"
@http://www.taplines.net/fs/fs.html
One photo shows a Standard to Narrow gauge truck-transfer operation, pre20th century-[last photo on linked page]
At least until about 1960/61 there was a transfer operation that was used,occasionally, at Durango Yard for lifting standard car bodies onto N.G. trucks. At some point, they[DRG&W} had used dual tracks from Antonito into Durango, standard gauge cars were moved in trains, using idler flat cars set up to link std gauge cars to narrow gauge cars. IIRC the tracks then from Durango to Farmington,NM were N.G only?
Late in the Newfoundland Railroad's life, when it was being operated by Canadian National, they had a set-up where standard gauge freight cars brought in by ferry were lifted off the standard gauge trucks and set on narrow gauge trucks, in the case of the NFLD RR the gauge was 3'6". Just like Sam described in the Durango yard.
The East Broad Top used their "Timber Transfer" crane to lift standarad gauge car bodies to allow for replacing the standard gauge trucks with narrow gauge trucks. Riding quality of the standard gauge cars was pretty dicey.
George Hilton's book on American Narrow Gauge Railroads had a section on the various means of transferring freight including several means of swapping trucks.
{The above was out of the section in Hilton's book that MC refers to in his post below.}
Murphy Transfer
-Go look at Hilton's American Narrow Gage and the "Inconpatability Problem"...
The D&RGW standard gauge track on the Alamosa to Durango branch ended at Antonito.
The Farmington branch of the D&RGW was built as an isolated standard gauge line in an area of exclusively narrow gauge railroad in the early 1900s. This was supposedly to keep the Santa Fe out of the area. I've seen references to surveys for standard gauging from Antonito to Chama, but never seen any.
At any rate, the line was later converted to narrow gauge in the early 1920s. It's not likely any provisions for handling standard gauge equipment was around much after 1923 when the line was converted.
Firelock76 Late in the Newfoundland Railroad's life, when it was being operated by Canadian National, they had a set-up where standard gauge freight cars brought in by ferry were lifted off the standard gauge trucks and set on narrow gauge trucks, in the case of the NFLD RR the gauge was 3'6". Just like Sam described in the Durango yard.
mudchicken Murphy Transfer -Go look at Hilton's American Narrow Gage and the "Inconpatability Problem"...
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
erikem The East Broad Top used their "Timber Transfer" crane to lift standarad gauge car bodies to allow for replacing the standard gauge trucks with narrow gauge trucks. Riding quality of the standard gauge cars was pretty dicey. George Hilton's book on American Narrow Gauge Railroads had a section on the various means of transferring freight including several means of swapping trucks. {The above was out of the section in Hilton's book that MC refers to in his post below.}
Anything by George W. Hilton is going to be a good read.
CSSHEGEWISCH Anything by George W. Hilton is going to be a good read.
mudchicken CSSHEGEWISCH Anything by George W. Hilton is going to be a good read.
I'e also found Hilton's books to be good reads - also have his book on Electric Interurbans. The latter has some good insights on the perils of debt financing.
A couple of more comments about Hilton's book on Narrow Gauge Railroads. First is the book is very well laid out, visually pleasing and the formatting adds to the readability. The second is that the book is in two sections as with his book on interurbans. The first section describes the general history and technology and the second is a state by state listing of all of the narrow gauge RR's.
My post is in reaction to this months issue showing that narrow gauge in the Rockys was alive and well into the 1960s hauling oil related supplys
The specific CN cars were used on narrow gauge trucks in Newfoundland, and the other cars that were used this way regularly were Merchants Dispatch refrigorator cars.
CandOforprogress2 My post is in reaction to this months issue showing that narrow gauge in the Rockys was alive and well into the 1960s hauling oil related supplies.
My post is in reaction to this months issue showing that narrow gauge in the Rockys was alive and well into the 1960s hauling oil related supplies.
Materiel like the pipes seen in many end-of-life NG photos would be much easier to transload from flatcar to flat car then a covered hopper full of, say, grain, or the like.
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
daveklepper The specific CN cars were used on narrow gauge trucks in Newfoundland, and the other cars that were used this way regularly were Merchants Dispatch refrigorator cars.
From what I saw on only a handful of visits most of the cars that were retrucked were standard 40-foot boxcars. Longer cars quite likely presented clearance issues on curves. Initially only CN cars had the their trucks replaced, but in the last few years an agreement was reached with CP and I have a picture of a CPRail boxcar in the middle of a narrow gauge freight.
Each car's trucks were set aside at Port-aux-Basques, to be reinstalled before the car was returned to the ferry.
There were also a number of (originally) standard gauge freight cars that CN permanently reassigned to the Newfoundland operation, including gondolas and hoppers.
CandOforprogress2 My post is in reaction to this months issue showing that narrow gauge in the Rockys was alive and well into the 1960s hauling oil related supplys
While there are many photos showing oil field pipe being hauled in gondolas, the recent trains article of the last Cumbres train showed all box cars for the oil field loads. My guess would be they carried sacks of bentonite and other drilling mud. Maybe they were palletized. They might have also carried some less valuable drilling tools.
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