I’ve always wanted to ask this, but I’m just getting around to it
Is anyone here that models narrow gauge NOT doing Colorado narrow gauge?
If not, tell the story and show your layout.
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Hello !
I have been in G gauge trains for 31 years. We went to Colorado in 1995, rode the Durango & Silverton, and Cumbres and Toltec, Georgetown Loop, etc. I became interested in G because so many models were available in Colorado road names. I amassed a pile of Colorado stuff, which I still love. Fast forward to 2018, and I’m looking for some new “ flavors”. I became interested in, and buying European trains. My current garden line is called the “ Swiss Colorado “. It turns out LGB makes a huge selection of European trains, mostly narrow gauge.
Here’s some of mine:
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European Narrow Gauge is sleek, modern,new, and upgraded. We usually think of narrow gauge as old and under maintained, but the story of narrow gauge in the U.S. is different due to financial stresses brought on when the narrow gauge boom in the U.S. made it profitable to build lines in remote terrain. Only later was it realized that the substantial cost of trans loading cargo from standard to narrow gauge cars is not profitable. Our image of narrow gauge in the U.S. is shaped by so many lines that hung on until the last shipper canceled. So, the the European narrow gauge is a different experience, if you’re looking for something different.
I like it myself!
Paul
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In the past there have been layouts featured in MR for Maine 2ft gauge and narrow gauge logging railroads.
Jeff
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I wasn’t expecting the European Trains. But the main two footers still have a certain amount of of over exposure, even though maybe less than Colorado. I didn’t even think of logging roads, but they’re still not the ones I was hoping to see.
Speaking of logging road layouts, the great majority appear to be set in the Pacific Northwest. Who is doing a logging road somewhere else? Especially in the Deep South. I have to laugh when I see a logging layout with Shays running on ballasted mainline grade track.
There were many, many, many narrow gauge lined built all over the country in the 19 century in every type of setting. They were usually built like that to economically get started, but were standard gauged after the need for it became apparent. There was even at least one in Louisiana, the name escapes me right now, but I’ll post it when it cuts through the brain fog.
I’m too old to care enough about doing deeper research anymore, but I’m pretty sure that part of the Missouri pacific early on was built narrow and later standardized.
Still looking for more obscure narrow gauge modeling.
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I mean, in a perfect world, this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jos97hCBIs
would be a narrow gauge setup, but it isn’t, sadly. I had to go with standard O gauge.
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I had one of those ramps when I was five! Taking me right back!
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Yeah, the #456 is a great accessory and one that I wanted for years. You do not want to know the messy rigamarole that I had to go through to hook it up, though!
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Sounds like an electrical fire waiting to happen. 
I never did. My dad and my uncle did it for me. 
Yes, Patrick, I model a narrow gauge railroad, but it is an “Imagined” branch, or short line. I do not model any NG railroad in particular. I choose what locomotives, and cars appeal to me.
Fred Mills
www.ovgrs.ca
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Well… it darn near could have been if I had decided to run it on DC…
It’s actually really simple to hook up Lionel’s way, but I had to complicate things by running the train off of DC… which the ramp is incompatible with. So I wound up jiggering an over-complicated circuit with two relays and a voltage regulator to switch voltages. At least I recently was able to pare it down to one relay and the regulator…
That’s great, and unique!
Going by the railroad press, you might think all narrow gauge was Colorado, California, and Maine. But many states had narrow gauge at one time or another. The Milwaukee Road had 3’ lines in Minnesota and Iowa, the last one to shut down was in the 1930s in Iowa. C&NW had a 3’ line in Wisconsin. South Dakota had narrow gauge, Ohio had a pretty extensive narrow gauge set-up.
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That is exactly my point. And I’m wondering if anyone has ever modeled any of those little known narrow gauge lines.
SD was quite extensive, and a source of great interest to me.
Pardon my lack of knowledge. Is “SD” South Dakota?
Yes; that’s the Postal Code and thus an abbreviation that I hear a lot–but, after all, I’m next-door neighbors to that most interesting state, so that could be a locational thing.
There was a narrow gauge boom in the 1870’s and 1880’s. Almost every state had a network. The concept was touted as cheap to build, following the contours of the land. Trans loading cargo to standard gauge turned out to be an obstacle. Some were standard gauged, but for most the cost did not justify.
Hawaii had an extensive network from Honolulu and up the west coast.Passenger coaches had been converted to haul canned pineapples, but were converted back during the war to haul vast numbers of military personnel. It shut down right after the war. The Oahu Railway and Land company.
Paul