Re: Why one narrow guage versus another?

philip.marshall Wrote:
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> What I have long wondered is why coal mines in the
> eastern US (and perhaps in the western US as well,
> I don't know) tended to use 42" gauge.
>
> There were certainly exceptions (for example, the
> EBT used 3' gauge in their mines, and the Hudson
> Coal Co. was 30" gauge), but 42" gauge was nearly
> universal in the Appalachian coalfields, and it
> appears to be have been so from a very early date.
> (I recall that Baldwin's first narrow gauge
> locomotive was a 42" gauge engine built for a West
> Virginia coal company, all the way back in 1868.)
> Was this just a matter of folk custom or
> convention, or was there some valid engineering
> reason behind it?

The very modern Henderson Moly Mine in Clear Creek and Summit Counties of Colorado used a 42" gauge haulage tunnel. JP