What is the height of most narrow gauge boxcars and passenger cars? It can be Colorado, EBT, WP&Y, whatever.
Thanks for any help.
EBT boxcars were between 9’1" and 10’9" over the roofwalk.
Dave H.
Depends on how far back you want to go. On the standard gauge, 8’ interior height boxcars were typical until the late thirties, before that in the 19th c. some cars were only about 6’ high inside. Narrow gauge cars would normally be smaller than their standard gauge counterparts.
Depends a bit too on if you mean 42", 36", 30" or 24" ‘narrow gauge’.
As Stix mentioned, car size for both standard and narrow gauge varied by era. One of the limitations of increasing car size was loading gauge - the space a car required to go down the tracks. Tunnels are the most notorious example of loading gauge limits, because they cost so much to rebuild. But bridges, especially through trusses, and other structures also imposed limits on car size.
Narrow gauge lines built at different dates each had different controlling loading gauges. The WP&Y had the largest loading gauge of any of the major narrow gauge lines because it was built 30 years after the D&RG was started. Narrow gauge lines seldom had the cash flow to go back and enlarge their tunnels the way standard gauge lines did, but because of their cheap construction tunnels were not all that common, either.
The C&S pioneered the use of steel underframes in narrow gauge car construction, but only a few lines could afford to buy new or used cars at that point (WP&Y and EB&T being the foremost examples).
The above pertains to 3ft gauge only - car size in all dimensions was generally related to gauge.
Fred W