If a narrow gauge railway was isolated, then why would it exist? If it would load tons of lumber and minerals onto river boats, or at a port, would that make sense? Or what if it was isolated all together, no boats, then what?
Hi!
The narrow gauge RRs were built that way to save money, climb higher grades in narrow spaces, and make sharper curves - usually (but not always) associated with mining and logging. Many of them did join up with standard RRs in dual gauge trackage (3 rail) where loads were transferred to the standard trains.
In other instances, Logs were dumped from the narrow gauge cars into the water ways for movement to the mills, or mine loads were dumped from trestles for processing.
What ever the case, the railroads were built with a reason - to haul “X” from point A to point B. In other words, the logic/reason to build came first, then came the RR…
No railroad would be built without a reason for being. There was always something to transport to somewhere. For example, it could be as simple as ore from a mine to a purification plant. The purified product could then be shipped out by wagons.
Joe
There are hundreds of examples of “isolated” narrow gauge railroads and they all exist for the same reason all railroads exist. To move something from one place to another. There are railroads that haul salt from brine ponds to the salt processing plant, coal from the mine to the breaker, steel products inside the mill, ties from the from the mill to the retort to drying stacks, construction materials to the work site, etc, etc.
It probably should be pointed out that before the rise of the internal combustion engine, railroads were constructed to do a lot of the work now done by earth-moving equipment, trucks, and tractors.
Isolated railroads were typically private industrial railroads. Some would be for construction such as for a dam or canal, or serving an isolated industry such as connecting a mine to its mill as previously mentioned.
The White Pass & Yukon Railroad in Alaska was a good example of a common carrier without an outside railroad connection (it’s now a tourist railroad). It’s connection with the outside world is the harbor at Skagway. Another is the railroad paralleling the Panama Canal, with ports on either end. (It’s the shortest transcontinental railroad in the western hemisphere and runs more or less north and south.) Island railroads were isolated too.
Standard gauge, not narrow gauge, but the same principles apply.
In the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York, there’s a right-of-way which once supported a railroad less than a mile long, the Portage Rail Road Marion River Carry Railroad. In the 1950s there were still a couple of old tank locomotives rusting away in the abandoned engine house - the only building for miles. EDIT: One loco has been preserved.
It ran from one lake to another, bypassing (and paralleling) a white water stream that was one continuous series of rapids. When there was a lot of commercial traffic on those lakes, that short railroad carried passengers, cargo and even boats from one to the other. By the mid-20th century it had been bypassed by roads and railroads, none of which were anywhere near that old right-of-way. The only way to reach either end was by boat.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - narrow gauge and narrower gauge, no dual gauge)
Kennebec Central was a 2 foot railroad in Maine. Hauled passengers and coal for heating. Coal was delivered by barge to a river port for transport by the railroad to a steam heating plant.
Enjoy
Paul
WHAT IF THERE WAS NO CONNECTION TO THE OUTSIDE WORLD? I’m modeling an area where there is no place for a port, and da, NARROW GAUGE, there was a hard way of changing over the stuff.
The three-foot gauge common carrier Bodie & Benton Railroad in eastern California had no outside connection. It ran from the mining town of Bodie , dropped down to Mono Lake, and then went to the opposite side of the lake to Mono Mills where there was a sawmill. The railroad brought lumber and cordwood to the Bodie mines. Tracks also ran to the forest immediately south of Mono Mills to bring in logs and large branches. The proposed connection to Benton was never built. Passengers were carried on flat cars. The railroad had 2-6-0s, 0-6-0s, and an 0-4-2.
There is a chapter on the railroad in George Turner’s book Narrow Gauge Nostalgia.
What about an interchange with a standard-gauge railroad? You don’t need to show much, just a platform with the narrow-gauge railroad on one side and the standard-gauge railroad on the other side of the platform–a place where goods can be transferred from one car to another. A winch, crane or other means of carrying goods (even just handcarts, it depends on what your railroad carries) and some bulk cargo on the platform is all you need. You don’t have to model all of the means by which your narrow gauge line gets its goods to the outside world–just enough to suggest where it goes. Or, if you don’t want to, you don’t even need to do that–nobody says your railroad has to be physically complete. The interchange or dock could be somewhere “off the layout.”
That’s where staging comes into play. The staging yard represents everything you want. The connection to the rest of the world. Via interchange to another railroad or via transfer to standard railroad or ships.
Wolfgang
This is really informational thread for me, I am new to this discussion forum. Thank sfor sharing.
I am actually going to have the stuff that my railway transports put on steam boats, and transported down to a large city.
Here is kinda what the boats ill look like. This is an Ontarian version of a river boat, (both were originally used by the Huntsville and lake of bays transportation company)
Those are primarily passenger boats, not freighters.
You are also making a classic model railroader mistake. You are forgetting the stuff that comes FROM a big city by boat and is transported TO the island. Most of the stuff that goes off the island will be raw materials that will travel in boats other than the type you have shown. Most of the stuff that comes onto the island will be manufactured or processed goods. Those could move in a boat like the last one you pictured because they would be boxed, crated or in barrels.
Those look like passenger/excursion boats. Not ones designed to handle cargo or bulk material…
I agree with that, but what about these dual purpose steamer Minto used by the CPR? Also, the Scuzzy which was owned by the CPR was a freighter
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