Narrow Gauge Equipment

[Klinger]

I have a question about narrow gauge equipment. of all the narrow gauge knowlage i know, i still got one thing to ask.

does anyone know how wide narrow gauge equipment is? Liek Locos, rotarys, coaches. The wheels are set 36" apart, but how wide are the actual cars from one side to the other

 

[bendorsey]

Grabbed my HO scale ruler and went into my layout room and measured:

Freight cars are around 8 ft.
Passenger cars are around 9 ft.
Small locos are around 9 ft.
K-series engines are around 10 ft.

Ben

 

[Prowler901]

Yup, that's pretty accurate Ben.

Regards,
Todd

 

[bendorsey]

Well I've had this scale rule since I was in Jr. High School, ha ha. A rotary might be 9 or 10 ft as some were converted from std ga I believe (RGS rotary OM perhaps)?

You should have seen the looks on my kids faces when I showed them my old slide rule (what? no batteries)? I still have it (ok I'm a packrat).

Ben

 

[mjolnir]

The width varies. DRGW Stock cars were 8 feet 5 inches wide; EBT steel box cars of 1916 were 7 feet 11 inches wide.

 

[bendorsey]

Yes, and with re-builds and modifications here and there I'm sure there were many more variations. Eventually no two cars of the same class were exactly the same. Artistic license in the car repair shops I'm sure, lol.

Ben

 

[thegrindre]

Here's a basic generic narrow gauge boxcar I found on the net with archbar trucks and link and pin couplers;

You're more then welcome to use these trucks if you want too. kuid [FONT=Verdana, Arial]347185:1088[/FONT];

 

[nwhitney]

You should have seen the looks on my kids faces when I showed them my old slide rule (what? no batteries)? I still have it (ok I'm a packrat).

Ben

Do you still remember how to use it? If I found mine, I'd need to find the instruction manual.:hehe:
Norm

 

[bendorsey]

Vaguely. I have a 20 inch K&E log log duplex dicedrig (or something like that). I remember how to do multiplication and division, I think I remember how to do squares and square roots, and if threatened with bodily dismemberment might remember how to do cubes and cube roots but as for the rest of it, not in a million years. All those log log scales etc. Don't think I ever knew how to use them. Haven't seen the manual in years.

Friend had a circular one but I never liked them as the acuracy declined the closer you got to the center.

Contrary to popular belief you can add and subtract on a slide rule (but only 2+2 and 2-2, lol).

They were fun back then. What I do not agree with is schools nowdays letting kids use calculators. How they gonna learn math without actually doing it. At least I had to take a course on how to use my slipstick (and at 20 inches long it was great for scratching my back, ha ha).

Ben

 

[Klinger]

thanks. Im working on a top secrete narrow gauge project (only one person knows what im doing)...just needed to know how wide they are.