American narrow gauge railroads

Standard gauge was favored for railway construction in the United States, although a fairly large narrow-gauge system developed in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado and Utah. Isolated narrow-gauge lines were built in many areas to minimize construction costs for industrial transport or resort access, and some of these lines offered common carrier service. Outside Colorado, these isolated lines evolved into regional narrow-gauge systems in Maine, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Iowa, Hawaii, and Alaska.

New England

In New England, the first narrow-gauge common-carrier railroad was the Billerica and Bedford Railroad, which ran from North Billerica to Bedford in Middlesex County, Massachusetts from 1877 to 1878. There were extensive gauge lines in the Maine forests early in the 20th century. In addition to hauling timber, agricultural products and slate, the Maine lines also offered passenger services. The Boston, Revere Beach & Lynn Railroad was a narrow-gauge commuter railroad that operated in Massachusetts, much of whose right-of-way is used for rapid transit today. Narrow gauges also operated in the mountains of New Hampshire, on the islands of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard and in a variety of other locations. The still-operating Edaville Railroad tourist heritage railroad in southeastern Massachusetts is a two-foot narrow-gauge system.

Mid-Atlantic

The last remaining gauge common carrier east of the Rocky Mountains was the East Broad Top Railroad in central Pennsylvania. Running from 1873 until 1956, it supplied coal to brick kilns and general freight to the towns it passed through, connecting to the Pennsylvania Railroad at Mount Union, Pennsylvania. Purchased for scrap by the Kovalchick Corporation when it ended common carrier service in 1956, it reopened as a tourist railroad in 1960. Still owned by the Kovalchick family, trains operate over of the original mainline. This line is the oldest surviving stretch of narrow-gauge track in the United States.

It was the last remnant of an extensive narrow-gauge network in New York and Pennsylvania that included many interconnecting lines. The largest concentration was in the Big Level region around Bradford, Pennsylvania, from which lines radiated towards Pittsburgh and into New York state. This group also included the Tonawanda Valley & Cuba Railroad. Though the TV&C's narrow-gauge tracks are long gone, the standard-gauge Arcade and Attica Railroad continues to run over a portion of the TV&C's route. The Waynesburg and Washington Railroad, a subsidiary of the Pennsylvania Railroad, operated in the southwestern part of the state until 1933.

The Philadelphia and Atlantic City Railway and the Pleasantville & Ocean City Railroad were originally built to gauge.

Southeast

The Southeast helped initiate the narrow-gauge era. The first in Georgia was the Kingsboro & Cataula Railway, chartered in 1870. In Tennessee, the Duck River Valley Narrow Gauge Railway was also chartered in 1870, opening seven years later; it was converted to standard gauge in 1888. The first narrow-gauge railway in Alabama was the Tuskegee Railroad in 1871.

Longest lived of its narrow gauges was the East Tennessee and Western North Carolina Railroad. Originally built as a broad gauge in 1866, the line was later converted to a narrow-gauge railroad between Johnson City, Tennessee; Cranberry, North Carolina; and ultimately Boone, North Carolina. It continued in service until 1950.

Another long-lived southern narrow gauge was the Lawndale Railway and Industrial Co.

Midwest

One of the first three narrow gauges in the U.S. – the Painesville & Youngstown – opened in Ohio in 1871, and the narrow-gauge movement reached its greatest length in the Midwest. For a brief time in the 1880s it was possible to travel by narrow gauge from Lake Erie across the Mississippi River and into Texas. The hub of this system, Delphos, Ohio, shared with Durango, Colorado the distinction of being the only towns in the United States from which it was possible to travel by narrow gauge in all four compass directions.

The Chicago Tunnel Company operated a long underground gauge freight railroad under the streets of the Chicago Loop. This common carrier railroad used electric traction, interchanged freight with all of the railroads serving Chicago, and offered direct connections to many loop businesses from 1906 to 1959.

Ohio was a center of the narrow-gauge movement. In addition to serving as the northern end of the Little Giant "transcontinental", it had several other notable lines, including the long-lived Ohio River & Western Railroad, the Kelley Island Lime & Transport Company (the world's largest operator of Shay locomotives, virtually all of them narrow gauge) and the Connotton Valley Railroad, a successful coal hauler still in operation today as the standard-gauge Wheeling & Lake Erie Railroad. Narrow gauge railroad mileage in Ohio reached its peak in 1883 and declined rapidly after 1884.

Numerous gauge common-carrier narrow-gauge lines were built in Iowa in the 19th century. The largest cluster of lines radiated from Des Moines, with the Des Moines, Osceola and Southern extending south to Cainsville, Missouri, the Des Moines North-Western extending northwest to Fonda and smaller lines extending north to Boone and Ames. These lines were all abandoned or regauged by 1900. The Burlington and Western and the Burlington and Northwestern system extended from Burlington to Washington, Iowa and the coal fields around Oskaloosa. This system was widened to standard gauge on June 29, 1902 and merged with the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad a year later. The Bellevue and Cascade, from Bellevue on the Mississippi to Cascade inland remained in service until abandonment in 1936. A caboose from the Bellevue and Cascade is the only surviving piece of Iowa narrow-gauge equipment. It currently operates on the Midwest Central Railroad in Mount Pleasant, a heritage railroad.

In 1882, thirty-two narrow-gauge logging railroads were constructed in Michigan, and by 1889 there were eighty-nine such logging railroads in operation, totaling almost of track.

Mountain West

The Denver and Rio Grande Railroad, opened in 1871, was one of the first three narrow gauges in the United States and by far the longest and most significant. It effectively circled the state of Colorado, and feeder lines were run to the mining communities of Leadville, Aspen, Cripple Creek, Telluride and Silverton. Through affiliated companies, its lines extended west to Salt Lake City, Utah and south to Santa Fe, New Mexico. The northern trunk line was re-gauged early to standard, but the southern portions remained steam-hauled and narrow gauge until the 1960s.

Other major narrow-gauge railroads in Colorado included the Rio Grande Southern, the Denver, South Park and Pacific, the Colorado Central, and the Florence and Cripple Creek. The Uintah Railway operated in Utah and Colorado, and boasted the tightest curve (Moro Castle curve) on a US common carrier at Baxter Pass.

In Utah, narrow-gauge railroads sprang up immediately after the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad on May 10, 1869. The Utah and Northern Railway connected the fertile Mormon Corridor with the mining camps near Butte, Montana with an extensive three-foot gauge system that lasted from 1871 until 1887. Other narrow-gauge lines in Utah included the Wasatch & Jordan Valley (which hauled granite for the construction of the Salt Lake City Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saint's temple) and the Utah & Pleasant Valley which tapped into the Pleasant Valley coal fields in north-central Utah. Both of these latter railroads eventually formed part of the Denver & Rio Grande Western System.

West Coast

The Southern Pacific operated several