A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a
track gauge narrower than
standard . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and .
Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with
tighter curves, smaller
structure gauges, and lighter rails, they can be less costly to build, equip, and operate than standard- or
broad-gauge railways (particularly in mountainous or difficult terrain). Lower-cost narrow-gauge railways are often used in mountainous terrain, where engineering savings can be substantial. Lower-cost narrow-gauge railways are often built to serve industries as well as sparsely populated communities where the traffic potential would not justify the cost of a standard- or broad-gauge line. Narrow-gauge railways have specialised use in mines and other environments where a small
structure gauge necessitates a small
loading gauge
A loading gauge is a diagram or physical structure that defines the maximum height and width dimensions in railway vehicles and their loads. Their purpose is to ensure that rail vehicles can pass safely through tunnels and under bridges, and ke ...
.
In some countries, narrow gauge is the standard; Japan, Indonesia, Taiwan, New Zealand, South Africa, and the Australian states of
Queensland
)
, nickname = Sunshine State
, image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg
, map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name = Australia
, established_title = Before federation
, established_ ...
,
Western Australia and
Tasmania have a gauge, whereas Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand have
metre-gauge railways. Narrow-gauge trams, particularly metre-gauge, are common in Europe. Non-industrial, narrow-gauge mountain railways are (or were) common in the
Rocky Mountains of the United States and the
Pacific Cordillera of Canada, Mexico, Switzerland, Bulgaria, the former
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label= Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavij ...
, Greece, and Costa Rica.
Nomenclature
A narrow-gauge railway is one where the distance between the inside edges of the rails is less than . Historically, the term was sometimes used to refer to
standard-gauge railways, to distinguish them from
broad-gauge railways, but this use no longer applies.
History
Early hand-worked lines
The earliest recorded railway appears in
Georgius Agricola's 1556 ''
De re metallica'', which shows a mine in Bohemia with a railway of about gauge. During the 16th century, railways were primarily restricted to hand-pushed, narrow-gauge lines in mines throughout Europe. In the 17th century,
mine railways were extended to provide transportation above ground. These lines were
industrial, connecting mines with nearby transportation points (usually canals or other waterways). These railways were usually built to the same narrow gauge as the mine railways from which they developed.
Introduction of steam
The world's first
steam locomotive
A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, oil or, rarely, wood) to heat water in the locomot ...
, built in 1802 by
Richard Trevithick for the Coalbrookdale Company, ran on a
plateway. The first commercially successful steam locomotive was
Matthew Murray's
Salamanca built in 1812 for the
Middleton Railway in
Leeds
Leeds () is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the thi ...
. Salamanca was also the first
rack-and-pinion locomotive. During the 1820s and 1830s, a number of industrial narrow-gauge railways in the United Kingdom used steam locomotives. In 1842, the first narrow-gauge steam locomotive outside the UK was built for the -gauge Antwerp-Ghent Railway in Belgium.
The first use of steam locomotives on a public, passenger-carrying narrow-gauge railway was in 1865, when the
Ffestiniog Railway
The Ffestiniog Railway ( cy, Rheilffordd Ffestiniog) is a heritage railway based on narrow-gauge, located in Gwynedd, Wales. It is a major tourist attraction located mainly within the Snowdonia National Park.
The railway is roughly long an ...
introduced passenger service after receiving its first locomotives two years earlier.
Industrial use
Many narrow-gauge railways were part of industrial enterprises and served primarily as
industrial railways, rather than general carriers. Common uses for these industrial narrow-gauge railways included mining, logging, construction, tunnelling, quarrying, and conveying agricultural products. Extensive narrow-gauge networks were constructed in many parts of the world; 19th-century mountain logging operations often used narrow-gauge railways to transport logs from mill to market. Significant
sugarcane
Sugarcane or sugar cane is a species of (often hybrid) tall, perennial grass (in the genus ''Saccharum'', tribe Andropogoneae) that is used for sugar production. The plants are 2–6 m (6–20 ft) tall with stout, jointed, fibrous stalks t ...
railways still operate in Cuba, Fiji, Java, the Philippines, and Queensland, and narrow-gauge railway equipment remains in common use for building tunnels.
Introduction of internal combustion
In 1897, a manganese mine in the
Lahn valley in Germany was using two
benzine-fueled locomotives with single cylinder
internal combustion engines on the 500mm gauge tracks of their
mine railway; these locomotives were made by the Deutz Gas Engine Company (''Gasmotorenfabrik Deutz''), now
Deutz AG. Another early use of internal combustion was to power a narrow-gauge locomotive was in 1902.
F. C. Blake built a 7 hp petrol locomotive for the
Richmond Main Sewerage Board
Richmond most often refers to:
* Richmond, Virginia, the capital of Virginia, United States
* Richmond, London, a part of London
* Richmond, North Yorkshire, a town in England
* Richmond, British Columbia, a city in Canada
* Richmond, California, ...
sewage plant at
Mortlake. This gauge locomotive was probably the third petrol-engined locomotive built.
First World War and later
Extensive narrow-gauge
rail systems served the front-line trenches of both sides in
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
. They were a short-lived military application, and after the war the surplus equipment created a small boom in European narrow-gauge railway building.
Improvements
Heavy-duty tracks
The heavy-duty narrow-gauge railways in
Queensland
)
, nickname = Sunshine State
, image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg
, map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name = Australia
, established_title = Before federation
, established_ ...
, South Africa, Japan, and New Zealand demonstrate that if track is built to a heavy-duty standard, performance almost as good as a standard-gauge line is possible.
Two-hundred-car trains operate on the
Sishen–Saldanha railway line in South Africa, and high-speed
Tilt Trains run in Queensland. In South Africa and New Zealand, the loading gauge is similar to the restricted British loading gauge; in New Zealand, some
British Rail Mark 2 carriages have been
rebuilt with new bogies for use by
Tranz Scenic (Wellington-Palmerston North service),
Tranz Metro (Wellington-Masterton service), and
Auckland One Rail (Auckland suburban services).
Another example of a heavy-duty narrow-gauge line is Brazil's
EFVM. gauge, it has
over-100-pound rail () and a
loading gauge
A loading gauge is a diagram or physical structure that defines the maximum height and width dimensions in railway vehicles and their loads. Their purpose is to ensure that rail vehicles can pass safely through tunnels and under bridges, and ke ...
almost as large as US non-excess-height lines. The line has a number of locomotives and 200-plus-car trains.
Fastest trains
Narrow gauge's reduced stability means that its trains cannot run at speeds as high as on broader gauges. For example, if a curve with standard-gauge rail (
1435 mm) can allow speed up to , the same curve with narrow-gauge rail (
1067mm) can only allow speed up to .
In Japan and Queensland, recent permanent-way improvements have allowed trains on gauge tracks to exceed .
Queensland Rail's
Electric Tilt Train, the fastest train in Australia and the fastest gauge train in the world, set a record of . The speed record for narrow-gauge rail is , set in South Africa in 1978.
A special gauge railcar was built for the
Otavi Mining and Railway Company with a design speed of .
Curve radius is also important for high speeds: narrow-gauge railways allow sharper curves, but these limit a vehicle's safe speed.
Gauges
Many narrow gauges, from gauge and gauge, are in present or former use. They fall into several broad categories:
Just under standard gauge
*
Huddersfield Corporation Tramways
*
Glasgow Corporation Tramways
4 ft 6 in gauge
track gauge (also known as Scotch gauge) was adopted by early 19th-century railways, primarily in the
Lanarkshire area of Scotland. lines were also constructed, and both were eventually converted to standard gauge.
Around 4 ft gauge
*
Middleton Railway
*
Barrow-in-Furness Tramways Company
*
Bradford Corporation Tramways
*
City of Oxford Tramways Company
*
Darwen Corporation Tramways
*
Derby Tramways Company
The Derby Tramways Company operated horse-drawn tramway services in Derby from 1880 to 1904.
History
The registration of the Derby Tramways Company took place in October 1877. In November 1879 it was reported that navvies were laying down the ...
*
Falkirk and District Tramways
The Falkirk and District Tramways operated a tramway service in Falkirk between 1905 and 1936.The Golden Age of Tramways. Published by Taylor and Francis.
History
The company started services on 21 October 1905. The company obtained most its ...
*
Glasgow Subway
The Glasgow Subway is an underground light metro system in Glasgow, Scotland. Opened on 14 December 1896, it is the fourth-oldest underground rail transit system in Europe after the London Underground, Liverpool's Mersey Railway and the Budapes ...
*
Honolulu Rapid Transit and Land Company
*
Keighley Tramways
*
Padarn Railway
*
Reading Corporation Tramways
Reading Corporation Tramways operated a tramway service in Reading, Berkshire, Reading in the England, English county of Berkshire between 1901 and 1939.
The tramway is one of the ancestors of the current Reading Buses, the town's municipally o ...
*
Redruth and Chasewater Railway
*
Saundersfoot Railway
*
Wellington tramway system
*
Central Funicular
The Central Funicular (Italian: ''Funicolare Centrale''), is one of four funiculars in the public transportion system of Naples, Italy. The system is a true funicular: an inclined railway with two passenger cars, connected via cables, operating ...
*
Fribourg funicular
The Fribourg funicular, also known as the Neuveville - Saint-Pierre funicular, is a funicular railway in the Swiss town of Fribourg.
It is powered by wastewater.
History
The Fribourg funicular was opened February 4, 1899. It connects the Sa ...
*
Gardena Ronda Express
*
Rheineck–Walzenhausen mountain railway
The Rheineck–Walzenhausen mountain railway (german: Bergbahn Rheineck–Walzenhausen; RhW) is a long rack railway in Switzerland. It links Rheineck station, in the municipality of Rheineck and the canton of St Gallen, with the village and he ...
,
Appenzell Railways
*
Schlossbergbahn (Freiburg)
The Schlossbergbahn ( en, Castle Hill Railway) is a funicular railway in the town of Freiburg im Breisgau in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It links the city centre with the Schlossberg hill.
The funicular was constructed in 2008, in order to rep ...
*
Stoosbahn
*
Zagreb Funicular
*
Arcata and Mad River Railroad
The Arcata and Mad River Railroad , founded in 1854, was the oldest working railroad in California. It operated on a unique narrow gauge until the 1940s when standard gauge rails were laid. Service ceased in 1983 due to landslides. It is Californ ...
*
Northern Redwood Lumber Company
Northern may refer to the following:
Geography
* North, a point in direction
* Northern Europe, the northern part or region of Europe
* Northern Highland, a region of Wisconsin, United States
* Northern Province, Sri Lanka
* Northern Range, a ra ...
*
Middlebere Plateway
The Middlebere Plateway, or Middlebere Tramway, was a horse-drawn plateway on the Isle of Purbeck in the England, English county of Dorset. One of the first railways in southern England and the first in Dorset, the plateway was built by Benjami ...
3 ft 7 in gauge
*
Köping–Uttersberg–Riddarhyttan Railway
3 ft 6 in gauge
between the inside of the rail heads, its name and classification vary worldwide and it has about of track.
Similar gauges
* in
Algeria
)
, image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg
, map_caption =
, image_map2 =
, capital = Algiers
, coordinates =
, largest_city = capital
, religi ...
* on the
Hejaz railway in Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Syria; only a few lines survive.
Metre gauge and Italian metre gauge
As its name implies, metre gauge is a track gauge of . It has about of track.
According to Italian law, track gauges in Italy were defined from the centre of each rail rather than the inside edges of the rails. This gauge, measured between the edges of the rails, is known as
Italian metre gauge.
3 ft, 900 mm, and Swedish three-foot gauge
There were a number of large railroad systems in North America; notable examples include the
Denver & Rio Grande and
Rio Grande Southern in Colorado and the
South Pacific Coast,
White Pass and Yukon Route and
West Side Lumber Co of California. was also a common track gauge in South America, Ireland and on the
Isle of Man. was a common gauge in Europe. Swedish three-foot-gauge railways () are unique to that country.
2 ft 9 in gauge
A few railways and tramways were built to gauge, including
Nankai Main Line
The is one of the two main railway lines of Japanese private railway company Nankai Electric Railway, together with Kōya Line. The route is from Namba Station in south downtown of Osaka to Wakayamashi Station in Wakayama via Sakai, Izumiōtsu ...
(later
converted
Conversion or convert may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
* "Conversion" (''Doctor Who'' audio), an episode of the audio drama ''Cyberman''
* "Conversion" (''Stargate Atlantis''), an episode of the television series
* "The Conversion" ...
to ),
Ocean Pier Railway at Atlantic City
The Ocean Pier Railway at Atlantic City was an electric narrow gauge railway, which ran over the entire length of the
Ocean Pier in Atlantic City, about into the ocean.
History
The Ocean Pier at Atlantic City was extended by in 1896/97. At th ...
,
Seaton Tramway
The Seaton Tramway is a narrow gauge electric tramway in the East Devon district of South West England. The route runs alongside the Axe Estuary and the River Coly, running between the coastal resort of Seaton, the village of Colyford, ...
(
converted
Conversion or convert may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
* "Conversion" (''Doctor Who'' audio), an episode of the audio drama ''Cyberman''
* "Conversion" (''Stargate Atlantis''), an episode of the television series
* "The Conversion" ...
from ) and
Waiorongomai Tramway.
800 mm, 2 ft 6 in, Bosnian and 750 mm gauge
gauge railways are commonly used for
rack railways. Imperial gauge railways were generally constructed in the former
British colonies.
Bosnian gauge and railways are predominantly found in Russia and Eastern Europe.
Between and gauge
Gauges such as , and were used in parts of the UK, particularly for railways in Wales and the borders, with some industrial use in the coal industry. Some sugar cane lines in Cuba were .
(2003) The rapid transit
Rapid transit or mass rapid transit (MRT), also known as heavy rail or metro, is a type of high-capacity public transport generally found in urban areas. A rapid transit system that primarily or traditionally runs below the surface may be c ...
Line 15 of the São Paulo Metro uses a gauge.
2 ft and 600 mm gauges
gauge railways were generally constructed in the former British colonies. , and were used in Europe.
Minimum gauge
Gauges below were rare. Arthur Percival Heywood developed gauge estate railways in Britain and Decauville produced a range of industrial railways running on and tracks, most commonly in restricted environments such as underground mine railways, parks and farms, in France. Several gauge railways were built in Britain to serve ammunition depots and other military facilities, particularly during World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
.
See also
* Feldbahn
* Forest railway
* Heeresfeldbahn
* Industrial railway
* List of track gauges
* List of tram systems by gauge and electrification
* Military railways
* Minimum-gauge railway
Minimum-gauge railways have a gauge of most commonly , , , , , or . The notion of minimum-gauge railways was originally developed by estate railways and the French company of Decauville for light railways, trench railways, mining, and ...
* Narrow-gauge railway modelling
* Narrow-gauge railways in the Netherlands Numerous industrial narrow-gauge lines were built for peat extraction, clay extraction for brickworks and construction sites. The dominant gauge for industrial lines was , contrary to the gauge used in neighbouring countries.
Nowadays, much of th ...
* Narrow-gauge railways in Sweden
* Narrow-gauge railways in Europe
* Rail transport in Walt Disney Parks and Resorts
* Ridable miniature railway
* Track gauge
* Trench railways
* War Department Light Railways
References
Notes
"Trade House" Kambarka Engineering Works "
* P. Whitehouse, J. Snell. ''Narrow Gauge Railways of the British Isles'', David & Charles, 1994, ISBN C-7153-0196-9
* ''Railroads of Colorado: Your Guide to Colorado's Historic Trains and Railway Sites'', Claude Wiatrowski, Voyageur Press, 2002, hardcover, 160 pages,
* Keith Chester. "East European Narrow Gauge" 1995
* "Narrow Gauge Through the Bush – Ontario's Toronto Grey and Bruce and Toronto and Nipissing Railways"; Rod Clarke; pub. Beaumont and Clarke, with the Credit Valley Railway Company, Streetsville, Ontario, 2007.
* "The Narrow Gauge For Us – The Story of the Toronto and Nipissing Railway"; Charles Cooper; pub. The Boston Mills Press; Erin, Ontario, 1982.
* "Narrow Gauge Railways of Canada"; Omer Lavallee; pub. Railfair, Montreal, 1972.
* "Narrow Gauge Railways of Canada"; Omer Lavallee, expanded and revised by Ronald S Ritchie; pub. Fitzhenry and Whiteside, Markham, Ontario, 2005.
* "The Toronto Grey and Bruce Railway 1863–1884; Thomas F McIlwraith; pub. Upper Canada Railway Society, Toronto, 1963.
* "Steam Trains to the Bruce"; Ralph Beaumont; pub. The Boston Mills Press; Cheltenham, Ontario, 1977
* "Running Late on the Bruce"; Ralph Beaumont & James Filby; pub The Boston Mills Press, Cheltenham, Ontario, 1980
Nevada Central Narrow Gauge
; Michael J. Brown
{{Authority control
Lists of track gauges
Railways by type
Track gauges by size