Prototype Question: Why narrow gauge?

Lower cost of construction is the reason usually quoted. Narrower earthworks and sharper curves than standard gauge were possible, hence the lower construction cost.

MN> Rick wrote: MN> MN> > I've been doing a fair amount of research here lately on the design MN> > of my next home layout, but a tangent question that came to mind was MN> > the why for a narrow gauge? MN> >

MN> > I can't think of any good reasons off the top of my head, so I will MN> > put it to the brain trust in r.m.r. MN> MN> Lower cost of construction is the reason usually quoted. Narrower MN> earthworks and sharper curves than standard gauge were possible, hence MN> the lower construction cost.

Also smaller and lighter equipment, which would also be a consideration depending on terrain and overall operations (eg mountainous mining or logging operations).

MN> MN>

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True, but operation costs were underestimated. Transferring freight at break of gauge added costs, and since narrow gauge couldn't haul as much freight per car, the economies of scale just weren't there. Speeds were slower than standard gauge, so passenger traffic felt the competition from cars and buses sooner and more severely than standard gauge did. These factors are very obvious in the case of the Maine 2-footers, for example. The Colorado narrow gauge appears to be exception, but recall that a) they hauled a lot of gold and silver, ie, very high value freight; and b) it took a while for good roads to penetrate the mountains. These two factors saved the Colorado narrow gauge lines for a while.

However, I like narrow gauge very much indeed. :-)

Not much of that holds true for New Zealand. Wagons are much the same size as standard gauge. Speeds are much the same as standard gauge.

Our gauge is 3'6" (1067mm), loading gauge is fractionally smaller than British railways and speeds are around 100 Km/hr (60 mph)

Well then, in your case 3' 6" really does not qualify as narrow gauge does it? That is to say, you don't interchange with railways of any other gauge, do you? In Oz, the Cane Toads, Mexicans and Cockroaches all run about on different gauges, so they have to struggle with narrow, standard and broad gauge, but in NZ you just have the one NZ standard gauge, correct? Since I do not remember whether you reside on the North Island or the South one, I will have to ask if you ski, and if you've been to the Alps this winter. Are they having a good season? Are there any web sites that show railway operations or railway pictures in and around Invercargill or Christchurch that you know of? The fellows over in Oz have some great websites with lots of photos and all kinds of railway information. What is there on NZ that you can share with the group?

Captain Handbrake

Of course it is narrow gauge - the specific gauge was chosen because most of NZ's terrain is mountainous. Standard gauge is about 33% larger so construction costs would have been about 75% greater (square both gauge figures to get a proportion) for the same load carrying capacity. Several of our lines would have been impossible to build at a cost our small population could have afforded.

Sure, there has in the past been a number of industrial lines. The main lines were nationalized in 1875 (from memory) and several lines were standard/broad gauge. (4'8 1/2" and 5'6")

That was one of the reasons for a national gauge policy - Canterbury lost it's lovely

5'6" gauge :-(

South Island - as far from main line railways as one can reasonably get :-(

No - I'm in a wheelchair.

Sure, I basically live on the Alpine chain.

Nahh, far too much snow!!!

Try NZR Gallery for a few of my photos.

You should find a few links on my web-page, but my interest is mostly Europe/worldwide as very little actually runs on the NZ tracks these days. Generally, in Chch the goods (container) trains are made up at Addington yard during the day and run after dark. The coal trains run a shuttle service from the West Coast to Lyttelton (the East Coast Chch port) about 8 times per day. Three passenger trains depart around 8 am (West Coast/Picton/Dunedin) and return circa

5pm. That's pretty well it! Invercargill would get one maximum weight goods train per day. There's a little local industry shunting each day from freezing works etc.

Opportunities for photographing around Chch are minimal and pretty boring for steam fans.

Now that WC has run our railways almost into the ground we can only hope that the combination of Toll (Aus) and the government will rejuvinate it.

Regards, Greg.P. Takaka.

(yeah, and I promise to update my website SOON)

Wolf Kirchmeir wrote: >>

All of this is no doubt true for North America. Elsewhere in the world, there were countries where the entire railway network was built as narrow gauge, almost always on the basis of lower construction costs.

Mark Newton wrote: > Wolf Kirchmeir wrote: >>>

All of this is no doubt true for North America. Elsewhere in the world, there were countries where the entire railway network was built as narrow gauge, almost always on the basis of lower construction costs.

As these were often government-owned or guaranteed lines, operating costs were not as significant a factor as they might be for privately-owned lines such as those in the US. They were usually regarded as a public service nad subsidised accordingly.

Because the companies that used narrow gauge didn't have two horses:-)

You make a good point for comon carriers which had to interchange with std gauge RRs. However there were many narrow gauge lines where interchange wasn't much on an issue, as for example logging lines like the West Side Lumber Co. which brought logs from the woods to a saw mill pond and separate std gauge brought out the finished lumber, or isolated lines like the White Pass & Yukon with "interchange" only to ships. Gary Q

If you mean "why people model narrow gauge" and not "why real mnarrow gauge railroads came to existance" than I would say:

Narrow gauge operations have this rickety low-budget aura around them. Usually very scenic and picturesque. Shoe-string budget and put-together-from- leftover-spare-parts.

No big terminals, stirct timetables... Just a laid back operation...

DISCLAIMER: I'm talking here about the stereotypical US prototype narrow gauge of course, but I'm sure there are some good examples of clean, well running and well equipped narrow gauge railroads all over the world.

Don't want to start a flame war here as I see couple of respondents here as potential flame throwers... :-)

Peteski

That reduces the break-of gauge costs, but the narrow gauge has lower load limits and lower speeds (as Gregory Porctor admist in his defence of NZ narrow gauge.) This the overall operating costs were (and are) higher. What it comes down to is that NG has a lower capacity compared to standard gauge, that is, it can't produce the same ton-miles or passenger miles per hour, and this will result in higher overall costs. The fact that a NG line used to capacity will produce more ton-miles and/or passenger-miles per year than an underused standard gauge line doesn't change the principle.

Subsidies aren't costs????? That is a really, really wierd point of view!

BTW, I assumed that operating costs of NG would be lower than those of standard gauge until I read a recently published history of the Steyrtalbahn, the first Austrian NG line (about half of which still exists as a museum operation.) The authors quote commentators who point out that the lower construction costs of the NG lines were in the long run more than offset by the higher operating costs. The STB was built to

760mm gauge as a private line, but received subsidies through much of its life.

If NG lines were really cheaper to operate, they would have expanded at the expense of standard gauge lines, which would have withered away.

...snip my claim that higher operating costs of NG lines offset their lower construction costs...

UK loading gauge is undersized compared to the rest of the standard gauge world.

Passenger trains in the standard gauge world run considerably faster than 60mph these days. Trains in the UK Europe regularly run at

80-100mph, and reach about about 125mph on some routes some of the time. Even VIARail here in Canada, hampered by crappy track and having to give way to freight trains on many routes, manages to run some of its trains at 80mph+ the some of the time.

IMO, NZ has pushed NG to its limits, and done it very well, too. Just think what the NZ railways could do with an extra foot of gauge, and a world-class loading gauge... Um, they'd have trouble finding enough freight to carry, maybe? :-)

Something over 40 years ago I was riding in the cab of a Wabash passenger diesel with my great-uncle Glen McNutt, and we were making 84 mph between Huntington and Fort Wayne. I'm sure the average was much less, as it's a pretty sort run, as was the previous one from Wabash to Huntington.

Which I agreed with - see below. Is there some confusion in your mind between CONSTRUCTION cost and OPERATING cost? Because I made NO CLAIMS regarding the operating costs of narrow gauge railways, only that many lines were built to narrow gauge because the CONSTRUCTION costs were comparably less than for a similar standard gauge line. Nothing else.

This is far from universally true. The NZ railway is a pissant backwater operation these days. If you wish to see what NG railways can achieve in relation to speed and load, look to South Africa, Queensland or Japan, to name but three.

It will result in a higher operating cost, not a higher construction cost.

Subsidies are subsidies. I'd say that if anyone has a weird point of view it's you. How is a subsidy an operating cost to the railway???

Isn't that what I already wrote? Why did the Steyrtalbahn and other NG lines receive subsidies, Wolf? Could it be that the Austrian government recognised that there was a social need for a railway, but insufficient potential revenue to justify the expense of a standard gauge branch?

Sigh! I repeat, I did not claim that NG lines were cheaper to run, merely that they were cheaper to build. You're arguing against a point that was never made, at least by me.

Pig's arse they have. You want to see NG pushed to its limits, look elsewhere...

In the USA narrow gauge was attractive because the start up costs were less then on broader gauges. The guys getting these rail roads up and going seemed to be focused on the short term, and in a hurry. It was a sort of "the future be damned" attitude.

Mark Newton wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@optusnet.com.au:

One nation: Japan. A scheduled 160kph (100mph) service on 3'6" track ....

That's what I keep telling him. :-)

We have something similar here in Australia.