Re: Is this WWII era spur narrow gauge?

One more possibility I will submit is that these rails are the remains of a meter-gauge tramway system for industrial haulage, likely connected to the several quarries and lumberyards in the area for horse-drawn trams.

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The horse-drawn tram (horsecar) was an early form of public rail transport, which developed out of industrial haulage routes that had long been in existence, and from the omnibus routes that first ran on public streets in the 1820s, using the newly improved iron or steel rail or 'tramway'. They were local versions of the stagecoach lines and picked up and dropped off passengers on a regular route, without the need to be pre-hired. Horsecars on tramlines were an improvement over the omnibus, because the low rolling resistance of metal wheels on iron or steel rails (usually grooved from 1852 on) allowed the animals to haul a greater load for a given effort than the omnibus, and gave a smoother ride. The horse-drawn streetcar combined the low cost, flexibility, and safety of animal power with the efficiency, smoothness, and all-weather capability of a rail track.

Meter-gauge tramways were apparently predominant in inter-war Poland:

[en.wikipedia.org]

This may explain the rail head size, as it does seem more similar to this meter-gauge tramway in Germany:


There is mention of "trolley rails" in these camps, which I was confused by, but these "trolley rails" could be a reference to a meter-gauge industrial tramway that connected industrial centers in the area to Malkinia train station.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/17/2021 08:21PM by Loco-Motive.