Ralph,
Hope you're enjoying the roadtrip, thanks for the topic and photos. And Chris Walker, thank you for the forum links.
Year ago I picked up
Narrow Gauge Railways of Canada for its White Pass content, but was delighted to be introduced to the Newfoundland RY. Can you suggest any additional good books/other resources for further exploration? I would certainly be eager to see more photos from the Merrilees Collection... thank you!
As railroads transitioned from steam to diesel in the 1940-50s, most surviving North American narrow gauge railroads persisted with steam (to nobody's dismay). A narrow gauge steam-to-diesel transition-era would not be considered unusual in, say, New Zealand or Japan, but in North America, the Newfoundland RY seems unique in experiencing this transition era concurrently and in similar form with standard gauge railroads.
Likewise, most North American narrow gauge did not adopt locomotive types following concurrent standard gauge mainline wheel classifications. Again, in New Zealand & Japan etc, modern mainline-type arrangements appeared in 42" gauge (eg. 4-8-2 or 4-6-4). According to the chart on p.152 of Hilton's
American Narrow Gauge Railroads, there were no narrow gauge 4-6-2s in the United States (chart is for common carriers, but industrial/logging railroads are unlikely customers for fast passenger engines). Cheers to Canada for bringing us narrow gauge Pacifics! (it still counts on an Atlantic island)
I once brought S-scale printouts of Newfoundland 4-6-2 and 2-8-2 plans to a hobby shop, and laid HO-scale models of USRA standard gauge locos of these types over the drawings. The wheelbases, driver diameters, cylinders, and heft of the boilers align with the S-scale plans with remarkable accuracy. The HO-scale boilers have more taper, the NF boilers are flatter. But in retrospect, it is not so surprising that these NF modern steamers are scaled-down versions of established locomotive proportions.
Filed to "future projects:" kitbashing a Newfoundland 4-6-2 in Sn42 (using HO mechanism) or TTn42 (1:120 using N-scale mechanism & track) as the basis for a Christmas tree layout concept (again, I expect the Kiwis/Aussies/etc are further ahead in modeling 42" gauge...).
Appreciate the Newfoundland topic, and definitely eager to see more!
Kevin Colbeck
