![old timey 3 engines trains old timey 3 engines trains](https://c8.alamy.com/comp/BMHB73/locomotion-no1-a-very-early-steam-engine-built-1825-shown-in-the-darlington-BMHB73.jpg)
Where a retaining wall was critical, "cribbing" with timbers was far more common than the stone or block retaining walls of the "big guys." Rickety trestles were far more common than tunnels, which cost a lot to dig. Instead of expensive grading, hastily-assembled timber supports might be used for even small dips in the terrain or to repair washouts. Ties might be set in gravel, but that was far from universal - sometimes they were just laid on the soil and the builders hoped the ground would never be muddy enough to swallow the track rails and all.
![old timey 3 engines trains old timey 3 engines trains](https://www.truewestmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/SF_WEB_AZ-12_AZ-Grand-Canyon-Railroad-Locomotive-and-train-4960_9-19-09_scaled.jpg)
In fact, many modelers who designed something they thought was "outrageous" have later found a real narrow gauge railroad somewhere that actually used such a thing. This "roll your own" approach to equipment makes 30" railroads especially fun to model. It was also built of two trucks with crossbars, but the trucks were connected "permanently" with a single beam. A related construction, the "skeleton" car, was used when the logs were going to be cut to a predetermined length. When the logs were delivered, the "disconnects" were simply coupled to each other for the return trip. The "body" of the car was made up of logs chained to each truck. One especially interesting kind of "car" was the "logging disconnect." These were actually two "trucks" (sets of four wheels) with couplers on the ends and a crossbar across the top for chaining the logs to. Ore cars, pulp wood cars, flat cars, gondolas, even passenger cars were built with the specific needs of this railroad in mind. Porter's locomotives carried water in tanks that wrapped around the boiler, giving them a "short, stocky" look.Įphraim Shay specialized in locomotives that used gears to get the power to the tracks - they were sure-footed and easy on the rails.īecause most 30" railroads had specialized uses, most of them had custom cars. Both designs could be ordered in any gauge, so they also turned up on many other gauges of track, including 24", 36", 40", and standard gauge (56.5"). Two of the most popular were designs by H.
![old timey 3 engines trains old timey 3 engines trains](http://www.trainweb.org/oldtimetrains/photos/cnr_steam2/49P.jpg)
And some of those railroads would also haul passengers or paid freight where there was a need.īecause they couldn't handle big heavy engines, most 30" railroads used the smallest engines that would pull the load they needed. But just about every kind of industrial load was hauled on 30" railroads, throughout most of the country. 30" railroads hauled commercial freight or passenger traffic. Coal mines, logging camps, rock quarries, lumber mills, steel mills, sugar plantations, and many other industries needed to get materials cheaply from point A to point B, and they didn't need any "frills" like 36"-inch wide track.Īs the list below shows, only a handful of U.S. That's one reason many folks like modeling the D&RGW.ģ0-inch Railroading - But to truly go where no rails had gone before, some railroads cut even more corners, and built tracks with the rails 30" apart (or less). They ran on 36" rails long after most other narrow gauge railroads had either gone out of business or converted to standard gauge.
![old timey 3 engines trains old timey 3 engines trains](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/cd/c6/a3/cdc6a3f8931a6302d1de2d8cba30e5b8.jpg)
The Denver and Rio Grand Western proved just how much you could do with 36" rails if you engineered carefully. In the United States, the most common narrow gauge was 36", although railroads were also built that had the rails 18", 24", 30", and 42" apart (plus other, less common variations too numerous to mention). And they were ideal for places where you literally couldn't fit a standard gauge railroad, and where small, unscheduled trains were more common than big scheduled freight and passenger trains. Narrow Gauge Railroading - Sure, the "narrow gauge" railroads couldn't handle the big engines and heavy cars of their big brothers, but they could be built for a fraction of the cost. But where there wasn't money, time, or space for huge curves and wide roadbeds, railroads were built with the rails closer together. Big companies with enough money, time, and space to build wide smooth curves put their rails 4' 8.5" apart, a "standard gauge" measurement that may go all the way back to ancient Rome. In the early days of railroading, nobody cared if your railroad used the same track width as the next railroad over, since cars and trains were never switched between lines anyway. Thirty-Inch Railroading, from Big Indoor Trains(tm)