"did the west coast narrow

"did the west coast narrow gauge railroads interchange cars among themselves? I don't mean with standard gauge railroads but actually between narrow gauge railroads themselves? "

That's a good question.  I can't think of any that did but maybe someone can come up with something. Most were connected to standard gauge lines where the freight or passengers were trans-loaded.  Some like the South Pacific Coast were bought and standard gauged early on. .DaveB

It would be common to

It would be common to transfer from std to ng and vice versa.  Most that did simply lifted the std car up and placed ng trucs under them.  It would be very uncommon to find two ng lines in close enough proximity to interchange between them.  A notable exception would be Colorado of course.  Russ

Depends

The Colorado lines that entered Denver had limited interchange until the D&RG pulled out of the  Denver market.

The other interchange occurred between the D&RGW and the RGS.

Depends

Most narrow gauge railroads were built to serve a single purpose and because of that were not connected.  That purpose was usually getting a single product out of a remote area to a standard gauge interchange, which then got that product to factories or markets.  Kind of like the cattle drives getting the cattle to a railhead to be shipped to the slaughter houses back East.

There were some that took on other purposes if it made money.  The railway I'm researching was purposed to support copper mining.  However, the tourist industry also brought in dollars so, the owners bought small passenger cars to attract tourists.

Interchange may have occurred among what appeared to be different railroads, but were owned by a conglomerate back East.  In other words some big outfit bought out all the narrow gauge lines in a particular area. Detroit Copper did that in Arizona.

Not all narrow gauge lines used interchangeable couplers. Some used Climax couplers, others used link and pin, and some logging lines were known to use chains. Even braking systems could be different.  Now if the individual lines were owned by a parent company that standardize the equipment you might get some interchange occurring.

I have seen photos of standard gauge boxcars, in a shop, being lifted, the standard gauge trucks removed and narrow gauge trucks installed. This allowed the boxcar to reach its final destination somewhere up the narrow gauge line.

Not all narrow gauge lines used the same distance between the rails.  On the railroad I'm researching, the many mines on the mountain were served by a 20" gauge railroad known as the Arizona Copper Company or ACC.  That 20" gauge interchanged with a 36" gauge railroad known as the Morenci Southern Railway.  From what I can tell manual labor was used to exchange mining goods and copper ingots between the two and there was an overhead hoist in one location.  The 36" gauge hauled the copper down the mountain to the standard gauge Arizona & New Mexico RR.  Mining supplies, coke and coal were hauled back up the mountain.

I believe the Peach Growers Association of California (I think that is the name) had narrow gauge Shays operating in the orchards.  I don't remember those lines interchanging with another narrow gauge line.

Perhaps if you posted some of the narrow gauge names that you are interested in you would get a more definite answer to you question.  You might learn that some of them were hundreds of miles apart.

Den

GREAT INFO!!!!

Great info from everyone, so thank you so much to start!!!

I'm here riding the Durango & Silverton (formerly the Denver & Rio Grande) and the narrow guage bug has bitten me. I see great potential in modeling narrow gauge since I don't have very much room for a layout and I'm just trying to gather as much knowledge as I can before I make the decision to switch from standard guage. My layout is not very far along and switching now would be an easy endevour.

As far as your question to me: "Perhaps if you posted some of the narrow gauge names that you are interested in you would get a more definite answer to you question" as you could imagine I'm interested in the Denver &  Rio Grande. If I'm not mistaken the Colorado & Southern and the Southern Pacific had narrow guage lines and weren't there other narrow gauge lines in the area as well. Also, where there private cars on the lines? I've seen GRAMPS tank cars and some other cars that were not lettered for the railroad though I'm drawing a blank at the moment.

I suppose I can always do the "what if" and have a couple of them interchange with each other. But I'd really like to know what was prototypical.

I did google narrow guage maps but wasn't able to find anything that was helpful, by the way.

Thanks again everyone for all of the info!!!      

You might look to eBay.

Large railroad maps are offered on eBay which have sections of the U.S.  Some are from the 1880s and some of a more modern time.  Choosing the right one would give you an idea of any interchanges.

also, many railroads had bigger dreams to push farther than they ever did.  At lot times to money to reach one more town dried up.  Read a little history on the lines you are interested in.  Maybe some came close enough that you could employ the "what if" they had met at "Nowhere" Town.  It is all up to you.

Den

And then there was

Silverton where the D&RG interchanged with the Silverton RR, the Silverton Northern, and the Silverton, Gladstone & Northerly RR.  Also the D&RG interchanged with the DSP&P in Denver and Gunnison.  Then there was the Colorado Central which interchanged with the D&RG in Denver and the Argentine Central in Silver Plume!  It also transloaded with the 2 ft. Gauge Gilpin Tram in Blackhawk.  The London, South Park & Pacific interchanged with the DSP&P near Alma, Co.  There are more but it could take longer than I have to look them up.

The Colorado Railroad Museum in Golden publishes the Colorado Railroad Map which is an all time map of the railroads here and would be very helpful in your search. It is  where I spent 5 minutes looking up the above info!

I hope you are enjoying your ride on the narrow gauge!

"I suppose I can always do

"I suppose I can always do the "what if" and have a couple of them interchange with each other. But I'd really like to know what was prototypical."

   I think the first thing to decide is what kind of layout do you want? What will fit in your space and what do you want it to look like? If you want mountains the Colorado lines would be a natural, if you want coal mining the East Broad top would be perfect, logging could be something like the West Side in the sierra,  if you want desert scenery the SP narrow gauge/standard gauge interchange  at Owenyo would make a nice scene, if it's a seaport then the Pacific Coast wharf at San Luis would be the obvious, etc.   So I'd start by standing in the room and visualizing what you'd like to see when done, then depending on the size of the space select one or more features of an appropriate prototype and draw up a way to make it fit. The railroads I mentioned are all well documentated so it shouldn't be too hard to find photos of possible layout elements to include and they all have groups of modelers building layouts that would be glad to help a new convert to their cause :> ) ...DaveB

bmvermil  I got excited when

bmvermil

I got excited when I saw your post, thinking it was about interchange between standard and narrow gauge. I am starting a new layout and am looking for prototype plans interchange trackage between the two.. I am looking for simple interchanges. Thr EBT and the DRG & W I am sure had very elaborate dual gauge trackage, but I am interested in smaller interchanges since I am modeling a fairly small layout. 12 by 26 feet for both standard and NG with staging for both outside this area. Any help here?

Thanks Ray

 "but I am interested in

"but I am interested in smaller interchanges since I am modeling a fairly small layout. 12 by 26 feet for both standard and NG with staging for both outside this area. Any help here?"

Check out the SP narrow gauge / standard gauge interchange at Owenyo. There's an SPNG Yahoo group with lots of info plus various websites on the subject. It's basically a small standard gauge yard and a small narrow gauge yard built side by side with cross loading freight platforms in between, one  area has cross loading cattle ramps and  another area has an elevated track on a trestle so narrow gauge hoppers and gondolas can be dumped into standard gauge cars, and the north end has an elevated tank car transfer track. Along the narrow gauge side( the east side) of the yard is a small station building and a small hotel plus some railroad service buildings.The west side of the yard features a standard gauge wye, some small railroad buildings and few small houses.  All out in the desert and now all gone except for a few traces of grading and small relics of wood and iron...DaveB

More

Depends on what you mean by "in the area."  There were numerous narrow gauge lines in Colorado besides the ones most people have heard of like the D&RGW, RGS or C&S.  There were the Florence & Cripple Creek, Crystal River, New Mexico Lumber Company, Denver Boulder & Western, Cripple Creek & Victor, Silverton Northern, Silverton Gladstone & Northerly, Silverton Ry., Uintah, Glipin Tram, Little Book Cliff and others.

The SP narrow gauge was in western Nevada and eastern California.  Nevada had several other narrow gauge roads, like the Eureka & Palisade, Nevada-California-Oregon, Nevada Central, etc.  Others existed in most states in the west.  The Great Depression finished off many that hadn't been abandoned or standard-gauged before then.  

If you're interested in narrow gauge, there are tons of books on the subject, and a specialized magazine in the Narrow Gauge and Short Line Gazette.

The GRAMPS cars were private owner cars that carried oil from a loadout at Chama, NM to a refinery owned by "Gramps" Lafayette Hughes in Alamosa, CO.  There were other lease fleet cars, primarily tank cars, used on the D&RGW/RGS and others.

Honestly not much. If you're modeling a typical narrow gauge line you're dealing with home road cars only unless you're modeling an early era, or the D&RGW/RGS (or to a limited extent the Silverton roads).  For most of their existence, interchange was rare among narrow gauge lines, and for most of them it never happened at all.  Swapping trucks for movement on standard gauge lines wasn't common.

David B   Thanks for the

David B

Thanks for the response. I was able to find photos of the SP interchange, but no track layouts. Also searched for Yahoo site with no luck. Is there a url that I could use?

"Thanks for the response. I

"Thanks for the response. I was able to find photos of the SP interchange, but no track layouts. Also searched for Yahoo site with no luck. Is there a url that I could use?'

   Here's a photo of an SP valuation map of the Owenyo interchange. The standard gauge comes in from the lower right and includes the wye and three lower yard tracks. The upper yard tracks are the narrow gauge heading to Laws on the left  and Keeler on the right.  The transfer platforms are between the standard gage tracks and the narrow gauge tracks. The transfer trestle is on the right where the dotted line spur comes off the standard gauge main. The oil transfer track is at the left end of the yard where is says retaining wall. ....DaveB 

Narrow Gauge

Thankjs Dave

More Info

Okay so when I was in the museum at Durango I came across this map on display (Caxton Map 1894)... I found the map online, but at the museum they had highlighted the railroads on the map. The legend listed the railroads they had highlighted and doing a google search most of them were narrow gauge...

I thought you were looking for California NG?

Are you still looking at California or now Colorado?

Den

HOn3 Owenyo

The October 2009 MRH had an article by Byron Henderson on modeling the SPNG in HOn3 in a bedroom-sized space.  His plan includes Owenyo.  Personally, I would opt to do less in the space - I think squeezing that amount of mainline run into that small an area detracts from the overall impression, especially because one of the SPNG's defining characteristics is the lonely emptiness of much of the terrain it ran through.  But if a longer mainline run is important to you, it's a great plan, and if it's not, elements of it could be taken and the overall plan simplified.

If you're interested in going that route with your modeling, you should track down a copy of Mallory Hope Ferrell's "Southern Pacific Narrow Gauge" - it really is a superbly model-genic prototype that has very seldom been done.

In terms of interchange between narrow gauge lines, as others have posted, it happened but was generally pretty rare after the early days.  While dozens of little-known narrow gauge shortlines existed across the country up until World War I or later, most of them were isolated from other narrow gauge lines, especially after the Rio Grande mainline was standard gauged in the years around 1890.  That being said, the more interesting interchange operation is between the gauges and such an operation can in itself provide the basis for a very satisfying switching layout.

 "Personally, I would opt to

"Personally, I would opt to do less in the space - I think squeezing that amount of mainline run into that small an area detracts from the overall impression, especially because one of the SPNG's defining characteristics is the lonely emptiness of much of the terrain it ran through."

Yeah, It's a very sparse landscape so the less compressed a layout the better. I sketched up a layout plan for Owneyo that consisting of the narrow gauge yard and the standard gauge yard viewed from the east side of the tracks with standard gauge staging coming in from the left and narrow gauge staging from both left and right ends of the yard. To keep the depth reasonable I substituted a turntable for the turning wye and hid it behind the scenery.  Owenyo could support operations involving the narrow gauge/standard gauge transfer of bulk minerals on the trestle, boxcar and reefer loads over the platform, livestock thru the stock pens, and fuel thru the tank car transfer tracks. A lot of variety in a relatively small space.  If one wanted a smaller scene and didn't care about standard gauge modeling the ends of the line at Laws or Keeler would be a worth a look....DaveB

California narrow gauge interchange

In reading the original post, my mind was jogged - I thought I recalled seeing documentation and/or a video on a narrow gauge to standard gauge operation near the west coast between San Francisco and Santa Cruz or in that area. A such, I was prompted to do some searching. I don't think I found what I had remembered, but I did find some links that may be helpful:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Cruz,_Big_Trees_and_Pacific_Railway

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sierra_Northern_Railway

https://www.uprr.com/customers/shortline/lines/scbg.shtml

http://www.sinfin.net/railways/world/usa/shortline/slca.html

To the east of Fresno, California, there is a huge fruit industry of private and company orchards that had some narrow gauge service at one time.

Calif Narrow Gauge

I suspect that around 75 to 90% of CA narrow gauge RR's were logging based. A few were mining and 3 that that I can think of were general freight. South Pacific Coast, Nevada County Narrow Gauge, And I think it was called the North Pacific Coast RR. It ran from Saualido up to Eureka and Arcada and eventual became part of either SP or WP RR.

A few of them interchanged with standard gauge lines. I don't remember any actually interchanging with other narrow gauge lines. Most of them were isolated, woods to mill or mine to mill. Standard gauge if it was there at all went to the mill and probably had a track next to the narrow gauge to swap freight over. Swapping trucks was pretty rare.

Jack

California

Other CA narrow gauges handling general freight - Carson and Colorado (later SP), Nevada-California-Oregon, Lake Tahoe Ry. & Transportation, Pacific Coast (separate from either the SPC or NPC).

Standard / NG interchange

Thanks UPWilly

 The information is very interesting. What I have been trying to find is an actual plan of the track layout of these interchanges. The ones that I have found on line do not show the track layout or are too small to read.

                                                                                                                                    Ray

More clarification...

On page 2 I posted the map that was at the Durango Museum. To answer a few of the questions that have been asked: I'm planning on modeling Colorado to answer one of the questions. I'm not interested in the interchange between standard gauge and narrow gauge to answer another. At one time or another narrow gauge railroads did actually connect, the tour guide for the Durango and Silverton said that not only did the Denver & Rio Grande Western have track in Durango but so did the Rio Grande Southern and I believe he said there was at least one other line as well. In Silverton there was apparently at least three or four narrow gauge lines there as well. So the question is did the narrow guage lines interchange equipment? I have never seen any pictures of a narrow gauge freight consist with "foreign" road cars. The railroads defiantly connected their track because there is a picture of a Rio Grande Southern locomotive on the turntable in the Denver & Rio Grande Westerns Durango yard facility. 

More info

I apologize for misinterpreting your posts regarding narrow gauge to standard gauge interchange.

With further research, I discovered another site that may help you:

http://www.pacificng.com/template.php?page=roads/ca/index.php