understanding narrow gauge????

[mrgstrain]

I understand what narrow gauge is. What i do not know is the advantage to running a standard size car on narrow gauge track's. Why is this done?
Larry

[Anonymous]

Narrow gauge was introduced primarily on industrial lines such as mining and logging. Both of these industries obviously need equipment that can get into some pretty tight places, and turn tighter than standard gauge equipment. It wad discovered that if the gauge was narrowed, both of those objectives could be accomplished. I'm sure there might have been other reasons, but surely these I have mentioned are among the biggest reasons.

[Anonymous]

Well tight places may have been one of the reasons for narrow gauge, but cost was the biggest reason. A narrow gauge line cost quite a bit less than a standard gauge line, mostly in rolling stock. Most of the rolling stock is not standard gauge size, but much smaller. Some narrow gauge lines like the East Broad Top did retruck standard gauge cars with narrow gauge trucks for special loads, but all of their own cars were smaller. Cheaper lines to construct meant the difference between having a railroad and not having one.

Bob Boudreau

[Anonymous]

Thanks Bob! I didn't include cost, because to me, it's so obvious, I just didn't think about it.

QUOTE: Originally posted by FundyNorthern

Well tight places may have been one of the reasons for narrow gauge, but cost was the biggest reason. A narrow gauge line cost quite a bit less than a standard gauge line, mostly in rolling stock. Most of the rolling stock is not standard gauge size, but much smaller. Some narrow gauge lines like the East Broad Top did retruck standard gauge cars with narrow gauge trucks for special loads, but all of their own cars were smaller. Cheaper lines to construct meant the difference between having a railroad and not having one.

Bob Boudreau

[vsmith]

Dont forget, retrucking standard gauge cars with narrow gauge trucks was a bit of a failure, as the wider bodies gave the cars a higher center of gravity,thus they had a nasty habit of falling over on rough track or sharp curves, usually taking the whole rest of the train with it which was a serious bummer for all concerned.

[selector]

Not only were the costs associated with construction of the track and bed lower, but clearing the surrounding rights of way were less onerous. If the cars were smaller, you didn't have to pay people to slash and burn a standard gauge's swath. The road was more flexible in where it went due to the ability to have tighter curves. It was sometimes cheaper to go around a big boulder than to blast it and cart the rocks aside.

[Anonymous]

Actually the concept of narrow gauge was that you would get almost the same capacity for substantially less cost in equipment and right of way construction.

You may have noticed that narrow gauge common carriers in the US are gone.

That's because the concpet was found to be wrong. It cost virtually the same amount to construct the grade and track in narrow gauge as standard and there wasn't very much savings at all in caror engine construction. Operating costs were virtually the same because you needed the same number of people to operate the trains and maintain the railroad. There was an added expense that every carload of goods had to be transferred from a narrow gauge car to a standard gauge car (or vice versa) if the shipment originated or terminated off the narrow gauge line. Since standard and narrow gauge cars weren't the same size that meant you had partially filled cars on one side of the move or the other. Very inefficient.

The longest lasting US narrow gauge railroad in the east was the East Broad Top. It was successful because it primarily hauled coal and it put the coal prep plant (that cleaned and sorted the coal) at the narrow-standard gauge interchange. Cleaning the coal requires it to be unloaded, cleaned and then reloaded into a car, so the EBT could unload it from the narrow gauge car into the plant, clean it and then reload it into the standard gague car with no loss of efficiency.

Dave H.

[fwright]

The narrow guage concept wasn't totally wrong. When building narrow guage in the U.S. was popular (1870-1900), the size of the rolling stock was very similar to that of standard guage. So the somewhat cheaper track and roadbed (mostly achieved by using lower construction standards rather than narrower width) could carry nearly the same capacity for lower upfront costs - very important in the then-rural West. Also, in 1880 and earlier, interchange traffic between railroads was almost completely unknown. Even railroads of the same guage would hand-swap cargo. In those days, machinery was generally more valuable than human labor.

My interpretation of what happend is that were great strides in increasing car and locomotive size and capacity in the standard guage world during the 1880-1900 time frame. The narrow guage roadbeds could not support the bigger and heavier rolling stock, because of both the narrower guage (stability issues) and the lighter construction standards. Most of the viable narrow guage routes were widened to standard guage to reflect this reality no later than 1910. The rest would die from a lack of financial viability because the served area's resources had been mostly extracted, and the extra interchange costs previously cited.

My 2 cents
Fred Wright

[Anonymous]

One thing to understand about narrow GAUGE is the word is not spelled GUAGE - GOO -AGE. It's G A U G E.

Starighten up and fly right! [:D]

Bob Boudreau

[dinwitty]

I will have a feeder narrow gauge line on my pike, using a true narrow gauge line name that fed into the N&W or Virginian, assumiing the narrow gauge lines could have succeeded better. Morefreelanced, I have the EBT hoppers to build for it now.

In the early times there were more than just the 3 footers, there was also broad gauge.
Standard Gauge won out.

Perhaps the last working vista for 3 foot gauge is the White Pass and Yukon, having the most modern diesels in 3 ft gauge.

They used intermodal equipment.





http://www.totalracing.com/ebt/ttoperation.htm

http://www.totalracing.com/ebt/stdgauge.htm

there ya go

[Anonymous]

Interchange really became common in the post Civil War era when many of the Southern and western lines were standard gauged (some were narrow, some were broad) .

Dave H.

[pedromorgan]

on the matter of narrow gauge rolling stock being top heavy. it was not restricted to passenger cars. there are plenty of pictures on the net of beyer garrats that have had a fight with a lorry and come off worse!
it does not take much to top a class 59 garrat!

Peter

[jnichols]

The only thing I ever needed to know about narrow gauge as a modeler is the enormous cool factor all of the equipment has!

Give me a Mudhen or give me death... [:p]

Jeff

[Anonymous]

There were numerous narrow gauge rail systems in the lower peninsula of Michigan durning the days of the lumber barronsin the late 1800's through the 1920's. Cheap to throw ties on the ground , lay track, and haul logs to a mill. The Dodge mansion (now a conference center) and its' grounds became a golf course and the home to Oakland University in Auburn Hills MI. Built by lumber money, not automotive riches.
Will

[mrgstrain]

Thank you all for responding. I now have a better understanding of something i knew little about. It's time to rock&roll.
Larry

[jockellis]

G'day, Y'all,
I read somewhere that the reason narrow gage (spelling by Yale-educated Lucius Beebe, probably the greatest writer of the rails) was so popular is that Americans seem to want to do more with less. Stock salesmen said they could sell shares of narrow gage railroads much more easily than those of a standard gauge railroad. So guess what they preferred.
Just saying narrow gage three times and getting a mental picture of two rusty, steel rails disappearing seemingly too quickly at the vanishing point gives one a funny feeling in the gut. To rephrase an old saw, Narrow gage is a time and place in a state of mind.
I also read that an old engineer on the Alaska RR went to Dollywood and told the park train enginemen there that he had run their ex-Alaska RR, ex-D,RG&W locomotive 70 mph back during or about WW II. I bet they broke out in cold sweats justing contemplating that thought.
Jock Ellis
Cumming, GA US of A