32mm/45mm railway

[HarryW]

Tomorrow I will begin the transformation of one of the loops of my garden railway from 45mm to 32mm gauge track. This is to run 32mm stock I have built/accumilated over the last few years. My plan is to model the "station" area as a junction between the 32 and 45mm tracks. I'd like to model this area with a degree of pheasability so my question is how ridiculous is the idea of a 2foot gauge branchline connecting to a 3 foot gauge railway. My hypothetical railway idea is for the castlegregory branchline to have been laid with 2 foot gauge track connecting with the 3 foot gauge Tralee and dingle railway. Is there a better hypothetical location for this 3ft/2ft junction? Hope that all makes some sense

Cheers,
Harry

[ge_rik]

They must have existed but not yet tracked one down.

Of course, the Peckforton Light Railway is a three-foot line with two two-foot feeders (copper mine and sand quarry) ....

Welcome to the forum BTW

Rik

[philipy]

Welcome to the forum Harry.
What you are suggesting sounds fine to me. If you haven't already seen Rik's "Peckforton" you really should take a look at his many threads on here and/or the Blog itself.

[GTB]

so my question is how ridiculous is the idea of a 2foot gauge branchline connecting to a 3 foot gauge railway.

I'm not aware of any junctions between 2' and 3' gauge common carrier railways in Ireland, although there may have been industrial 2' gauge railways that connected somewhere to a 3' gauge line, or a broad gauge line.

There were junctions between 2' gauge and 3'6" gauge lines in other parts of the world. There were several in Australia and South Africa for instance.

If you are looking for 'plausible deniability' for having an Irish 3' gauge line with a 2' gauge feeder, then a bit of alternative history is called for.

As examples....

- The cash strapped T&D built the original branch in 2' gauge to save money. Can't think of any logical reason why they'd do it, but that never stopped anyone. Maybe one of Fairlie's disciples visited the area and conned the directors into believing that 2' gauge was a 'good' idea.....

- The line was closed as originally happened, then the existing roadbed was used for an industrial line of some sort. No idea what sort of industry in the middle of nowhere on the west coast of Ireland would need a 2' gauge railway. A treacle mine maybe........?

What it comes down to is that it's your backyard and garden railway. If having a dual gauge line is what floats your boat, then it doesn't matter what others think.

Regards,
Graeme

[drewzero1]

Perhaps the 2 foot line is a privately owned industrial/mining/field railway. It could have been built with military surplus stock after the first Great War when there was extra 600mm/2ft equipment going around, or maybe the 2ft gauge track is easier to lay temporary sections for something like a peat railway. I didn't find any specific prototypical examples but it certainly seems plausible enough to me!

[ge_rik]

Another possibility is that the 3' gauge railway is the 'mainline' and the 2' gauge railway is an 'Estate Railway' transporting goods and passengers from/to the mainline to/from a stately home.

Rik

[HarryW]

Thanks for the ideas everyone. It seems that one bit of nonsense 'what if' is okay so far as you keep the rest of the railway as plausible as possible (at least for me).I like the idea that the original branch was built in 2 foot gauge for cost reasons, but like you said Graeme there is no obvious logical reason for this. As for the estate railway idea if I model in 15mm / the foot for the Irish line the 32mm track should equate to 25inch gauge, or I could keep it 16mm so that the estate railway is 2 foot gauge. Yes an industrial link to the mainline would make the most plausible sense, for now I will put the loop of 32mm track down and consider all options.

One idea that came to me today is to model in 10mm/foot scale so that the mainline is gauge one and the 32mm track is 3 foot gauge. I have tried resizing a narrow gauge loco on my resin 3d printer for this and it fits. Im not sure if the peco 32mm track would look correct in this scale but maybe with some heavy ballasting...

P.S. I am familiar with Rik's excellent railway and have 3 ex peckforton goods vans in my possession

Cheers,
Harry

[ge_rik]

P.S. I am familiar with Rik's excellent railway and have 3 ex peckforton goods vans in my possession
Cheers,
Harry

Hi Harry

I wondered where they had ended up. ..
I hope they do the job.

Rik

[HarryW]

P.S. I am familiar with Rik's excellent railway and have 3 ex peckforton goods vans in my possession
Cheers,
Harry

Hi Harry

I wondered where they had ended up. ..
I hope they do the job.

Rik

Hi Rik,

They should be running soon! (I intend to swap out the wheels for 32mm sets)