Do you know Narrow Guage when you see it?

[Maddox61]

Ok. so i'm the dumby.

I can't tell if these are Narrow Guage or Standard Guage. I need to know this for a route I am working on for the D&RG.

I know that Standard Guage is 1,435 mm (4 ft 8 1⁄2 in). But can you tell by looking at an image if you can't get the info.

Most of the Royal gorge route was narrow guage to make the sharp curves and I know that a lot of the D&RG route was changed to Standard Guage and some Dual Guage lines.

I am posting some images of the track. I will number each pic for refference.

If you know the track guage of the pic could you please list the size and refference number.



Image 1

Image 2

Image 3

Image 4

Image 5

Image 6

Image 7

Image 8
This is one of the engines that ride these rails. And image 9 is the track in front of it going into the garage.
It looks about like Standard Guage track, but would they have been able to raplace the narrow guage track with stadard guage going up through the Royal Gorge?

Imagfe 9

I would have posted this in another location for help. But did not want to bog down the help sections with images.

Thanks again for the help,


Merrill

 

[Timothetoolman]

They all seem to be SG. Hope that helps.

Tim

 

[jakelw]

standard gauge.

 

[sawyer811]

Going from memory (which is definitely something not to go on), the Royal Gorge was standard gauged in the 1880's or 1890's, it wouldn't have run anything bigger than a C-19 on it, even though they have the 499 (a narrow gauge K-37) on the rim of the gorge. Interesting though, the 499 was built as a standard-gauge C-41 2-8-0 (IE the engine built-in to Trainz) but was taken into Burnham in...1926? (insert brain fart here) for conversion. you can always tell the K-37s were Standard Gauge by the tender truck axles. they just shoved the wheels closer on the axles and left the standard-gauge axle frames and bolsters in place.

Just FYI, every line on this picture that isn't grey or the teal-looking color was D&RGW Narrow Gauge (grey=standard gauge D&RGW, teal=RGS Narrow Gauge).

I'm sure you know, but D&RGW and the RGS (and C&S and a dozen others) were all 3ft gauge.​

sorry for the narrow-gauge 101.​

EDIT: just noticed, but the line that goes west out of Alamosa to Creede is standard gauge, or at least it is now.

EDIT 2: i guess i should clarify, the whole D&RG (later D&RGW) was built as Narrow Gauge, but was prgressively standard gauged starting in the 1880's (i could have that wrong again...too lazy to dig out the books that would tell me ) the lines here were the ones that stayed Narrow Gauge too the end.​

 

[Shortline2]

Hi,

While not the Royal Gorge it self, this parts here might be of interest (from a page I wrote for my website):

[FONT=Trebuchet MS, Arial, Helvetica]1887
[/FONT][FONT=Trebuchet MS, Arial, Helvetica]Denver & Rio Grande changes from 3' NG to dual gauge on the line from Pueblo to Florence, which also includes the Coal Creek Branch.
[/FONT]
[FONT=Trebuchet MS, Arial, Helvetica]1888
[/FONT][FONT=Trebuchet MS, Arial, Helvetica]Denver & Rio Grande changes from 3' NG to dual gauge on the line from Florence to Canon City, and the Colorado Springs to Manitou Branch.

[/FONT][FONT=Trebuchet MS, Arial, Helvetica]1890
[/FONT][FONT=Trebuchet MS, Arial, Helvetica]Denver & Rio Grande changes from 3' NG to dual gauge on the line from Canon City to Salida.[/FONT][FONT=Trebuchet MS, Arial, Helvetica]

[/FONT][FONT=Trebuchet MS, Arial, Helvetica]1898
[/FONT][FONT=Trebuchet MS, Arial, Helvetica]Denver & Rio Grande changes from standard gauge to dual gauge from Chandler Junction to Fremont Mine.
-> This change was done in order to permit F&CC narrow gauge equipment to be able to operate to the mine.[/FONT]
[FONT=Trebuchet MS, Arial, Helvetica]
[/FONT][FONT=Trebuchet MS, Arial, Helvetica]1911
[/FONT][FONT=Trebuchet MS, Arial, Helvetica]Denver & Rio Grande change from dual gauge to standard gauge.
[/FONT]

[FONT=Trebuchet MS, Arial, Helvetica]Pueblo to Florence
[/FONT]

[FONT=Trebuchet MS, Arial, Helvetica]Chandler Junction to Cleora (2 miles east of Salida)

[/FONT][FONT=Trebuchet MS, Arial, Helvetica]1914
[/FONT][FONT=Trebuchet MS, Arial, Helvetica]Denver & Rio Grande change from dual gauge to standard gauge.
[/FONT]

[FONT=Trebuchet MS, Arial, Helvetica]Florence to Chandler Junction
[/FONT]

[FONT=Trebuchet MS, Arial, Helvetica]Chandler Junction to Fremont Mine
[/FONT]

[FONT=Trebuchet MS, Arial, Helvetica]Coal Creek Branch

How the Royal Gorge is today I have no idea about, I seem to have a bit of memory reading someplace several years back that Royal Gorge was again to be dual gauged for the tourist trains, but no idea what came out of it.

The above is just dates from way back before most of use even where born or thought of...

Linda
[/FONT]

 

[Maddox61]

Thank you all very much for the info.

Thank you for the list Linda.
I can call the D&RG Scenic Railway Tours in the morning and they can tell me if the gorge is still dual guage.

I am building this route in the current era since I wish to include the incline railway and suspention bridge that were both buildt between 1929 and 1931.

But it sure would be fun laying all the old time narrow guage tracks and setting up all the towns in say the 1870s era.

Well, Thanks again all,

merrill

 

[Maddox61]

I feel real smart asking questions about the different track guages. Especialy considering that I grew up across the street from the SF Railraod yard in Richmond California.

Oh well. It could be worse. I could be asking which end of the train the the steering wheel is on. :hehe:

 

[sawyer811]

You can always tell if a line is dual gauge because there's three rails attached to the ties, instead of just two. this example is at Antonito on the Cumbres and Toltec:

the cars are sitting on the standard gauge rails (two wooden boxes and an "idler car" which has three couplers on each end to allow standard gauge engines to switch/pull narrow gauge cars and vice versa) and the middle (ish) rail that doesn't have the wheels on it is laid to 3ft narrow gauge. it will use the right-hand standard gauge rail for it's twin. Since you can't see this arrangement at the gorge, it's definitely not dual gauge.

Sorry for the long posts, I don't mean to take over everything. The first real steam train i rode was the Cumbres and Toltec, and ever since i have been in love with the Narrow Gauge, especially three foot lines. Other than the Missouri-Kansas-Texas (my favorite railroad) this is the stuff i've spent most of my 18 years studying. Trust me, it took me a long time to figure out the different gauges too (plus i thought for the longest time that the K-36s and the 463 didn't have wheels, just counterweights)

Plus, with Klinger conspicuously missing, somebody has to fill in as the resident narrow-minded person around here!

(apparently it's time for narrowgauge 102 :hehe: )