Probably not

Would or Could?

Dear Irish,

Would it? Possibly. Any "Name" railroad needs a way to ID it's stock. Whether it's an official AAR/FRA acronym, or just something recognized by the RR and it's fans, a letter acronym is a quick way to ID the railroad.
(C&S, D&RG, WW&F, SR&RL, WLCo, etc etc)

Whether the AAR/FRA would consider a contemporary NG line under it's jurisdiction is a seperate issue. 

Could it? Why not? It's your RR, and you have to call it something...

Happy Modelling,
Aim to Improve,
Prof Klyzlr

Name vs Reporting Marks

Of course it's going to have a name, and a well known one:  After the merger between the Sandy River and Rangely Lakes with the Wiscasset, Waterville, and Farmington (and the impracticality of keeping all the places in the name...) it became the Wiscasset and Rangely Lakes, nicknamed the Great North Central Railroad.

It will certainly be able to id its stock--I was just wondering if it would need to have the standard AAR reporting mark scheme.

If I model it in the modern era, you'll see 4-6-6-4's with ditch lights and radios--the North Central never completely dieselizes--running significant steam right through the present day.

Why not?

Dear Irish,

Why not be the SRRL&WWF RR?
("Alphabet Route" anyone? ).

Seriously, the W&RL/WRL reporting marks sound fine to me,

nicknames generally don;t make it into AAR/FRA lexicon, unless the "nickname" is actually a merger/rebranding/rr-re-invention (IE the railroad had the "W&RL era", and the "GNCR era". Opportunity to "tell the history of the railroad" thru old W&RL-lettered stock holding on in the GNCR era, maybe in M-o-W service?)

Happy Modelling,
Aim to Improve,
Prof Klyzlr

What if....

the 2' gauge stock was built to AAR standard-gauge dimensions and was bogie-swapped onto standard-gauge bogies? That would mean that this stock would be effectively on interchange service. It might need another set of sway dampening bearing areas underneath or similar for the 2' gauge bogies on the bogie bolsters, but the rest of the wagon could be "standard" standard-gauge with your  "NCR" AAR-type reporting marks.

Some considerations- your 2' gauge trackwork would have to be "good to excellent" to prevent excess sway causing problems and your coupling heights would probably have to be higher than usual  for 2'gauge to match the standard gauge coupling height. Because of the gauge difference, in order to avoid coupler swing problems,shared track would probably need 4-rails rather than the 3 rails usually seen on standard gauge/3'6'gauge transfer areas in Australia. Rail weights would probably have to be the same as for standard-gauge line of the period to handle the axle loads of these cars.     

This is not as silly as it sounds. My local 2' gauge museum railway in Australia runs ex-standard-gauge trams as passenger cars. These were not designed for interchange service to standard-gauge when we converted them to 2' gauge, but perhaps they could have been....   

WPY

The White Pass & Yukon Route is a narrow gauge railroad that still operates today and has a reporting mark, WPY. They are a three foot gauge line operating out of Skagway, AK, and interchange with no other railroads. They really run no freight and have no year round operations, but they still have a reporting mark and are very much under the jurisdiction of the FRA for their territory in the USA.

As for the relationship with the AAR, remember that while the AAR establishes many operational and clerical guidelines that modern railroads stick to, they are an industry association and do not govern railroad operations the way the FRA does. Membership in the AAR is determined by whether or not the railroad wants to pay the annual dues. Many short lines choose not to pay into and join the AAR, but rather join the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association (ASLRRA), because that group caters more to their business.

Reporting marks

Reporting marks are only necessary if there are multiple "roads" involved.  Otherwise you could just number your cars.

Narrow guage cars were listed in the ORER in the days when narrow gauge common carriers were still operating.  I would look and see if the WP&Y (a three foot gauge common carrier) is using reporting marks.

One other consideration, since you said this is a modern railroad, modren railroads often don't provide cars for their customers, the customers have their own fleets so rather than interchange, it may be that your railroad has some general service cars but the rest are customer owned/leased and would have to have reporting marks to identify which cars belonged to which customers.

The lumber mill owns special log bunks and then has its own bulkhead flats for packaged lumber which are designed to handle 1/3 of a 60 ft bulkhead flat.  The ore processor has its own ore jennies and the oil dealer has its own tank cars.

Interesting idea

My narrow gauge line will be keeping the charm of the 2 footers, meaning smaller cars and locomotives, so won't be exchanging trucks with the big boys.  Neat idea, though--and perhaps a specialty car or two might do that.)  Dual gauge will be limited to such places as loading docks, stations, etc--and the main repair and restoration shops.  By the current time, the main shop will have at least three gauges (some dummy if I model it--might be an interesting diorama).  2 foot, 3 foot, and standard.

But, there will be some container shipment on the narrow gauge line.  (Possible, the SR&RL had a car 8 1/2 feet wide.)

Spaghetti Junction2?

Hi Irish Rover,

Having seen triple-gauge in action on the ground in Australia I wish you luck especially with that gauge mix.

Some history - triple gauge tracks only occurred in 2 places in Australia, at. Peterborough and Gladstone both in South Australia. Both places originally were transshipment points between broad gauge (5'3") and a narrow gauge (3'6") networks. Things got real interesting when the 3'6" gauge line from Broken Hill in far western NSW was standard-gauged in the late 1960's. At Peterborough, all 3 gauges were present but only 2 of them were on the ground at the same place. Gladstone wasn't so lucky and became the only place in Australia with triple gauge tracks, including a triple gauge turntable with 6 rails on the turntable deck. For pointwork, there was at least one of any combination of any or all of the 3 gauges. Gladstone had the nickname of both "the Platelayer's Nightmare" and "Spaghetti Junction".  

The following link should give you some idea of the complexities of some triple gauge track on the ground 
http://www.johnnyspages.com/classic_pictures_menu_files/classic_bob's_pictures_6.htm

For ease of construction, I'd suggest you stay with dual gauge in any given area, unless you want another "Platelayer's Nightmare". 

Ideler cars

A little off topic, but the Denver & Rio Grande Western constructed a series of standard gauge idler cars for the sole purpose of coupling rolling stock of two different track gauges to one another for operation on dual gauge track.

They basically constructed them from the frames of scrapped tender cars. The idler had two couplers on each end, one for the standard gauge and another one that was lower and off center for the narrow gauge car.

-- Bill B.

"If a narrow gauge line is

"If a narrow gauge line is still in commercial use in the 1940’s/50, and transfers cargo/passengers to standard gauge lines, would it be assigned standard AAR reporting marks like the Union Pacific (UP) or Norfolk Southern (NS)?

     I'd expect it to have reporting marks ( road name and numbers) but not need to put car dimensions and capacity data on there since the cars would not be interchanged. The SP narrow gauge had car numbers and initials to the end of operations.  For a narrow gauge that survived till today I'd guess they would use truck trailers  or containers for the loads instead of across platform transfer. A pretty neat layout could be built around a narrow gauge line serving a remote area with intermodal equipment. ...DaveB 

Gladstone in Proto 48

I was once invited to see a layout under construction of a simplified version of Gladstone which was built to Proto 48 standards. Can't for the life of me remember the modelers name but it was in the Eastern area of Adelaide. Magnificent trackwork and models.

OKGraeme

Transporter wagons

Just out of interest, did any of the US narrow gauge railroads use transporter wagons, which allowed standard gauge vehicles to be carried as part of a narrow gauge train?   

This example comes from one of the 750mm gauge lines in southern Saxony, near the Czech border. 

Best wishes

Eric

East Broad Top

The East Broad Top used to swap narrow gauge trucks for standard gauge trucks so they could pull standard gauge cars in their narrow gauge trains.  They had a timber transfer crane to lift up one end of the car and roll out the standard gauge truck and roll in the narrow gauge (or vice versa).  They also had a coupler adapter as well.

Enjoy

Paul

Not in Maine

Maine 2-footers never did that.  I suspect that the track would be too narrow to run a car that wide and tall with any ease.  I'm planning on building an idler flat or two with a narrow gauge coupler on one end, standard on the other for moving things on the dual gauge track.

East Broad Top would be called "broad gauge" in some parts of Maine...

You couldn't do the truck

You couldn't do the truck swap on 2' gauge, the SG rolling stock was simply too big & heavy.

The EBT got away with it because they overbuilt the line and maintained it to tip-top condition, in large part to enable truck-swaps. Note they used relatively small cars (40ton for the most part IIRC).

The Newfoundland Railway did the same thing with SG rolling stock on 42" gauge (and was for much of the 20th century the largest NG common carrier in North America, although it was a part of CN for that period). SG on 42" trucks was very doable because 42" gauge allowed 40-50 ton rolling stock already.