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3 foot gauge with standard gauge components?

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So the rails and trucks are on your friend’s property?  Ordinarily, with this kind of abandoned material, you would have to be somewhat concerned about who has title to it.  Even if taking does not result in any prosecution, you don’t want to be forced to give it back, after committing a lot of labor to salvaging and re-using it.  If the WM left the material on your property, though, I guess you might be in a fairly strong position. <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p> But in any case, as mudchicken has mentioned, the rail would be useable for 3-foot-gauge.  A lot of narrow gauge lines ended up using relatively heavy rail in proportion to their gauge, compared to standard gauge.  Some of the 2-footers used rail in the 56-60+ pound range.  Spikes and ties from the standard gauge would be fine for the 3-foot-gauge. <o:p></o:p> However, trying to modify and use the trucks and wheelsets for 3-foot-gauge seems like an uphill battle.  A common wheel diameter for 3-foot-gauge is 24”, and the standard gauge wheels will be 33”.  It would be an awful lot of cutting, grinding, measuring, fixturing, and expert welding to narrow a standard gauge truck.  And the result would be a mighty heavy-duty and tall 3-foot-gauge truck.    The wheelbase would be quite long if you chose to not shorten the truck frames, but shortening them would be a lot of extra work and would yield inelegant results.   So, even though they may be free for the taking, by the time you invest all the labor of recovering and re-working them, your effort would be better spent on locating and purchasing some narrow gauge components.  If you only acquired the wheels or wheel/axle sets, you could build the side frames, bearing boxes, bolster, and other components easier than modifying the standard gauge components, and end up with a much better result.
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