Narrow gauge question

[oldscout]

A couple of week ago I got to ride the DSNGRR. Where the the narrow guage 2-8-2's built from the standard guage engines or made for narrow guage. Did they spread the frames to put the drive wheels inside of the frame or made that way?

[Jugtown Modeler]

I have often wondered this regarding other locomotive types or railroads. So I did some digging...

From SteamLocomotive.com: http://www.steamlocomotive.com/mikado/?page=drgw

The Denver and Rio Grande (predecessor of the DSNGRR) early narrow gauge 2-8-2 Mikado type locomotives - "The simple two cylinder locomotives had 40" diameter drivers, 17" x 22" cylinders, a 200 psi boiler pressure and they exerted 27,022 pounds of tractive effort. The firebox was 113 square feet and the evaporative heating surface was 2149.

Later, the D&RG RR ran standard gauge Mikados with " 63" diameter drivers, 27" x 30" cylinders, a 200 psi boiler pressure and they exerted 59,014 pounds of tractive effort. The firebox was 335 square feet, the evaporative heating surface was 3,700 square feet and with the superheater the combined heating surface was 4,495 square feet."

So it would appear that they are different beasts... but I am not an expert.... Anyone else more enlightened?

[Michael Whiteman]

Weren't the K-35s a standard gauge engine?

[randgust]

Boilers from standard gauge engines were re-used on narrow-gauge frames on some classes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%26RGW_K-37

And be aware that the same railroad had standard-gauge and narrow-gauge divisions in Colorado. D&RG and D&RGW

[Jugtown Modeler]

Due to the recent Nn3 forum add, I am resurrecting a few topics that have been forgotten.

In reference to the OP, I would "assume" that each narrow gauge road had unique requirements. Having perused some old steam locomotive catalogs, I can say there were quite a few products available to suit various needs. If you were in the market for a locomotive, narrow gauged or not, you could look at several manufacturers offerings to find a suitable product.
@randgust (http://www.nscale.net/forums/member.php?u=2225), you seem more informed on this topic. Your response was that they re-used the boilers. Can I assume then that the drivers and cylinders were rebuilt during the conversion? Or am I confusing other later Mikados specs?

My interest is for other types of locomotives. If one railroad re-gauged their fleet, perhaps others did as well. I have seen tourist narrow gauge 0-4-0 and 0-6-0 tank engines, think goat or docksider. I have been looking to put a marklin chassis under a standard gauge model. (for loco bigger than a teakettle...) How prototypical would this have been? Or would these have been smaller locomotives, than standard gauge, from their initial catalog purchase?

Anyone?

Thanks!

[GlennS]

I have also had the pleasure of riding the D&SNGRR. Also I am looking at its history. Looking at the website provided by Jugtown Modeler above there is more information available.

Some of these were purchased as Narrow Gauge while some later ones were converted from Standard Gauge.

http://www.steamlocomotive.com/locobase.php?country=USA&wheel=2-8-2&railroad=drgw

Great read. Even has a bit from an Engineer's and Fireman's perspective.

[ranulf]

Can I assume then that the drivers and cylinders were rebuilt during the conversion? Or am I confusing other later Mikados specs?



The C-41 locomotives that became K-37's received all new frames and cylinder castings when converted. I know for a fact the 493's cylinder castings have cast into them the name of the firm in Denver that cast them, and the date of 1928. From the drivers forward, the K-37's valve gear, running gear and pony truck are identical to the K-36's. The blueprints for the running gear parts are even labeled K-36/K-37. The trailing truck is almost identical to the K-28's.

The original tender truck frames were not narrowed, they just had new axles installed with smaller wheels spaced 3 feet apart.

[ranulf]

My interest is for other types of locomotives. If one railroad re-gauged their fleet, perhaps others did as well. I have seen tourist narrow gauge 0-4-0 and 0-6-0 tank engines, think goat or docksider. I have been looking to put a marklin chassis under a standard gauge model. (for loco bigger than a teakettle...) How prototypical would this have been? Or would these have been smaller locomotives, than standard gauge, from their initial catalog purchase?


Steve that's an interesting question, and I've put some thought into it, as well as bounced it around with some of my nerdier train nerd buddies.

Re-gauging a FLEET is very rare. Well, not counting the reconstruction era when the entire south was re-gauged from 5' gauge to standard gauge. That's a lot easier than going from standard gauge to 3 foot gauge. The K-37's were kind of a Goldilocks moment if you think about it. You had a railroad with a need for larger locomotives on its narrow gauge divisions. Same railroad had a surplus of smaller standard gauge locomotives that, while not worn out, were still over 25 years old during a period of great technical improvements to steam. While "The Sick Old Man of Wall Street" (as the Grande was called) was perpetually cash strapped, the late 20's right before the depression was a bit of a boom time economically. So the stars kind of all aligned. If they had recognized their need or had the conversion idea one year later, the K-37's probably would have never made it off the drawing boards.

Re-gauging individual locomotives is not unheard of, but most examples I know of were going from narrow gauge to standard gauge... The Grant locomotive at the SanFilippo museum comes to mind: https://www.dhke.com/rrus/static/images/Sanfilippoloco.jpg

Or the two K-27 Mudhens that were sold to the N de M and re-gauged to standard gauge: https://www.drgw.net/gallery/d/55392-2/ndem_2250_lajunta_mx_17_mar_1962_000.jpg

Many logging locomotives swapped back and forth between standard and narrow gauge throughout their careers, but consider it is a LOT easier to convert a geared locomotive than a rod locomotive. That said, I recall hearing about a loco that was converted from a rod loco to a geared loco and re-gauged at the same time, but I forget the specific details.

While you're being a bit vague about the conversion you have in mind, I would say there is enough precedent to say it was definitely plausible, especially if it was a 1 of 1 conversion for some reason. I think to make it believable in model form, you should really look at proportion. Unless you just want a big ugly narrow gauge industrial switcher! There's plenty of examples of those.... I remember seeing a page devoted to those: some of them were real brutes, but I can't find it now...

So what did you have in mind, Steve? Inquiring minds want to know. If you want to keep it a secret, PM me and I'd be happy to bounce some ideas around with you.

[Jugtown Modeler]

This was an old idea that never really went anywhere... yet.

Since I've already highjacked oldscout 's thread....

I was wondering how different an 0-6-0 standard gauge tank locomotive would be from an 0-6-0 narrow gauge tank locomotive from the same manufacturer. Would the boiler/cab/frame be the same dimensions and just offered on standard or narrow drivers, etc? When you look at videos or photos of some of these, it is hard to tell how big they really are. I had not been able to locate drawings for any comparisons.

By the same token, and I think this has been touched on, what about other wheel arrangements? In general, were narrow gauge locomotives specifically designed for narrow gauge, or did they just build a 4-6-0 with one set of specifications and "slap" on different gauge drivers, etc? It would certainly make modeling narrow gauge N a bit easier.

Although, I had long ago guessed the answer.

On a separate thread, someone created a narrow gauge Alco RS-3(?) on this site. I had been trying to find prototypes of that situation... but that was a few years back now...

[randgust]

It's really kind of interesting and different manufacturers and railroads did it differently.

For geared steam locomotives, really all they did was change the trucks. On a Heisler, that put the counterweights and rods on the outside of the truck sideframes and resulted in a very topheavy locomotive. Same with Climax, and Shay. No real design difference and some were inherently unstable.

The Denver & Rio Grande 2-8-2's had a class where they took standard-gauge 2-8-0 boilers and put them on the narrow-gauge frames, with outside counterweights.

If you look at the differences - narrow gauge was almost always a narrower car and narrower clearances; I think 8'6" was typical where 10' is typical in standard gauge. So, that impacts cabs, pilots, car widths, etc. But a boiler is a boiler is a boiler. On drivers, the big issues became getting cylinders big enough to still drive anything of power; when they got bigger and went outside, so the did siderods, counterweights, and frames. Your D&RGW K-classes evolve around that.

Then you have the elegant purpose-built ones, like the EBT Mikados, narrow-gauge and well designed and done from the ground up.

In N scale, if you look at the "Atlas" 2-6-0, it's actually a model of the Porter-built narrow-gauge 2-6-0 for Japan 42" gauge, built to Japanese 1:150 scale to run on standard gauge track 9mm. Micro Ace in Japan developed the model and produce it for Atlas. Confused? But the time it's done, it looks so much like a standard-gauge 1:160 N locomotive it's not readily apparent at all. Until you put it beside an Atlas 4-4-0 that's actually scaled right and suddenly realize something is terribly wrong here....

Where it really shows is in the freight cars where 36' is normal and car heights are MUCH lower. The Bachmann civil-war era cars are tiny, but 10' wide. I successfully converted one of the boxcars to Nn3 and it looks pretty darn good, just a little on the fat side. You don't realize how low a narrow-gauge freight car is until you are in one. The Cumbres & Toltec converted a bunch of stock cars to open passenger cars when they started, and the roofs are low enough you had to duck down to keep from banging your head in many places if you were six feet tall or over.

For diesels, you have a whole different can of worms because some of the standard traction motors that fit a stock standard gauge truck are too long to fit in a narrow gauge truck. So you'll see a whole bunch of oddball approaches including hanging the traction motors out over the truck ends, or not powering all the axles to gain some more space. it's really out of hand when you get down to 2' gauge. Many of the standard newer industrial diesels only swap out the trucks but the overall width can be a real pain. The 36" gauge six-axle Porter 1203 (one of a kind) built for US Gypsum that has been all over (Huckleberry, Georgetown, Sumpter Valley, now Durango & Silverton) is wide enough that it wouldn't fit through some of the cuts on the Georgetown Loop without some rocks being taken out. While it's just a little diesel anyplace else, it turns into a six-axle pulling monster on narrow gauge.

It still works though, look at some of the incredible stuff that has been done repurposing US diesels overseas to narrow-gauge operations. Santa Fe SF30C's now have eight-axle trucks and are working narrow-gauge operations in Brazil. Ugly as sin, but it works.

[mosslake]

The ALCO DL531 was/is a 1,000hp diesel common in Australia on 3 different gauges. 3'6", 4'8.5" and 5'3". Some operated on all 3 gauges simply by changing the trucks.
They are what's called a 'branch line' loco, used on light wheat lines. Their usefulness evident in that most of these locos built between 1959 =1970 are still in revenue service.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ALCO_DL531

Something for tomcook
A MLW built, Brazilian DL531 testing on the CPR
http://cs.trains.com/ctr/f/3/p/277180/3169304.aspx

[Jugtown Modeler]

Thanks for posts.
Sounds like there are not a lot of standard gauge models that are likely candidates of prototypical "re-gauging" for narrow gauge projects.


On a separate thread, someone created a narrow gauge Alco RS-3(?) on this site. I had been trying to find prototypes of that situation...
I thought this was an interesting concept: https://www.nscale.net/forums/showthread.php?35961-Nn3-Diesel-Project
But I can't find a reference for a prototype for narrow gauge Alco RS1 or any narrow gauged, regularly offered Alco power to re-gauge.
So much for an "easy" path to modeling Nn3...

[mosslake]

I can't find a reference for a prototype for narrow gauge Alco RS1 or any narrow gauged, regularly offered Alco power to re-gauge.

What about this Z scale RSD-5
https://zscalehobo.com/azl/azl_63315.html

With this RLW body?
https://www.republiclocomotiveworks.com/show_item.php?ID=473

Or try the Z scale chassis under an Atlas RS-1 shell

[Jugtown Modeler]

But I can't find a reference for a prototype for narrow gauge Alco RS1 or any narrow gauged, regularly offered Alco power to re-gauge.


Or try the Z scale chassis under an Atlas RS-1 shell
I have quite a few Nn3 locos, kits and Z mechs for some narrow gauge projects.

No doubt it can be done, creating a narrow gauge diesel from standard. My overall question now is whether it should be done...?
How often did a railroad have a need to convert a locomotive from standard to narrow. randgust has mentioned a few times.
The earlier thread/project reference to re-gauging a RS-1 (or any N scale readily offered locomotives) from standard gauge to narrow is an intriguing concept for the Nn3 enthusiast, but there does not seem to be much precedent or prototypical reference to draw inspiration from historically.

I'd love to re-gauge a N loco and may do so yet, but I'd like to at least find a historical reference for one.
One of the projects I had been considering and what started my hi-jack of this thread, was looking at taking a standard gauge 0-4-0 or 0-6-0 tank engine and finding a Z mechanism to turn it into a narrow gauger.
And, if this was prototypical. Appears it is not common.

[Jugtown Modeler]

In N scale, if you look at the "Atlas" 2-6-0, it's actually a model of the Porter-built narrow-gauge 2-6-0 for Japan 42" gauge, built to Japanese 1:150 scale to run on standard gauge track 9mm. Micro Ace in Japan developed the model and produce it for Atlas. Confused? But the time it's done, it looks so much like a standard-gauge 1:160 N locomotive it's not readily apparent at all. Until you put it beside an Atlas 4-4-0 that's actually scaled right and suddenly realize something is terribly wrong here....

This Atlas 2-6-0 is the most common standard N loco to re-gauge for Nn3 use. But as you point out, it is noticeably out of scale even as standard gauge.
(could it stand in as HOn3 fodder....?)
Thankfully, RLW, randgust, Tom Knapp, others have helped out this N scale niche with their offerings.